Max Lucado Daily: Guard Your Attitude
It's easy to forget who is the servant and who is to be served. The tool of distortion is one of Satan's slyest. When the focus is on yourself, you worry that your co-workers won't appreciate you or your leaders will overwork you. With time, your agenda becomes more important than God's. You're more concerned with presenting self than pleasing Him. You may even find yourself doubting God's judgment.
Remember Martha criticizing her sister Mary, "Lord don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me" (Luke 10:40). What had Mary chosen? She'd chosen to sit at the feet of Christ. God is more pleased with the quiet attention of a sincere servant than the noisy service of a sour one!
Guard your attitude. If you concern yourself with your neighbor's talents, you'll neglect your own. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both!
from He Still Moves Stones
Nehemiah 1
1-2 The memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah.
It was the month of Kislev in the twentieth year. At the time I was in the palace complex at Susa. Hanani, one of my brothers, had just arrived from Judah with some fellow Jews. I asked them about the conditions among the Jews there who had survived the exile, and about Jerusalem.
3 They told me, “The exile survivors who are left there in the province are in bad shape. Conditions are appalling. The wall of Jerusalem is still rubble; the city gates are still cinders.”
4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God-of-Heaven.
5-6 I said, “God, God-of-Heaven, the great and awesome God, loyal to his covenant and faithful to those who love him and obey his commands: Look at me, listen to me. Pay attention to this prayer of your servant that I’m praying day and night in intercession for your servants, the People of Israel, confessing the sins of the People of Israel. And I’m including myself, I and my ancestors, among those who have sinned against you.
7-9 “We’ve treated you like dirt: We haven’t done what you told us, haven’t followed your commands, and haven’t respected the decisions you gave to Moses your servant. All the same, remember the warning you posted to your servant Moses: ‘If you betray me, I’ll scatter you to the four winds, but if you come back to me and do what I tell you, I’ll gather up all these scattered peoples from wherever they ended up and put them back in the place I chose to mark with my Name.’
10-11 “Well, there they are—your servants, your people whom you so powerfully and impressively redeemed. O Master, listen to me, listen to your servant’s prayer—and yes, to all your servants who delight in honoring you—and make me successful today so that I get what I want from the king.”
I was cupbearer to the king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Read: Luke 1:1–4
So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.
INSIGHT:
Luke was a highly educated physician in the Greek academic tradition. As a result, his word choice and grammar are eloquent and descriptive. Today’s reading is an introduction to his narrative of the life of Christ. We can be assured that what Luke writes is not based on hearsay but is deeply rooted in a well-documented eyewitness record of Jesus as the Christ. Luke acknowledges that other trustworthy biographies of Jesus of Nazareth had preceded his account. But he felt compelled to write his own eyewitness narrative. It’s interesting to note that the book is addressed to Theophilus, which in Greek means “lover of God.” Most believe Theophilus was an actual person, but others say this name is a term that could refer to any of us who are lovers of God and yearn to learn more about His dear Son.
How does knowing eyewitnesses wrote the Gospel accounts of Christ encourage you in your spiritual life?
For further study read Beyond Reasonable Doubt at discoveryseries.org/q0411. Dennis Fisher
The Snake and the Tricycle
By Tim Gustafson
I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning. Luke 1:3
For years, I had retold a story from a time in Ghana when my brother and I were toddlers. As I recalled it, he had parked our old iron tricycle on a small cobra. The trike was too heavy for the snake, which remained trapped under the front wheel.
But after my aunt and my mother had both passed away, we discovered a long-lost letter from Mom recounting the incident. In reality, I had parked the tricycle on the snake, and my brother had run to tell Mom. Her eyewitness account, written close to the actual event, revealed the reality.
Jesus came to give us peace with God.
The historian Luke understood the importance of accurate records. He explained how the story of Jesus was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2). “I too decided to write an orderly account for you,” he wrote to Theophilus, “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (vv. 3–4). The result was the gospel of Luke. Then, in his introduction to the book of Acts, Luke said of Jesus, “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive” (Acts 1:3).
Our faith is not based on hearsay or wishful thinking. It is rooted in the well-documented life of Jesus, who came to give us peace with God. His Story stands.
Father, our hope is in Your Son. Thank You for preserving His story for us in the pages of the Bible.
Genuine faith is rooted in reason.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you… —John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “…My peace I give to you…”— a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
