Max Lucado Daily: SEEING GOD AT WORK
When God responds to our specific prayer in specific ways, our faith grows. The book of Genesis relates the wonderful prayer of Abraham’s servant. He was sent to find a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. How does a servant select a wife for someone else? This servant prayed about it. “O Lord God of my master, Abraham. I am standing here beside this spring, and the young women of the town are coming out to draw water. This is my request: I will ask one of them, ‘Please give me a drink from your jug of water.’ If she says, ‘Yes, have a drink. . .let her be the one you have selected. . .” The servant envisioned an exact dialog, and he then stepped forth in faith. Scripture says in Genesis 24:15 that “Before he had finished speaking, Rebekah appeared.”
The servant offered a specific prayer and received an answered prayer. Consequently, he saw God at work! May you and I do the same.
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 14
1-2 Then this: Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim went off to war to fight Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar.
3-4 This second group of kings, the attacked, came together at the Valley of Siddim, that is, the Salt Sea. They had been under the thumb of Kedorlaomer for twelve years. In the thirteenth year, they revolted.
5-7 In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him set out and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their hill country of Seir as far as El Paran on the far edge of the desert. On their way back they stopped at En Mishpat, that is, Kadesh, and conquered the whole region of the Amalekites as well as that of the Amorites who lived in Hazazon Tamar.
8-9 That’s when the king of Sodom marched out with the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar. They drew up in battle formation against their enemies in the Valley of Siddim—against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five.
10-12 The Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into the tar pits, but the rest escaped into the mountains. The four kings captured all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, all their food and equipment, and went on their way. They captured Lot, Abram’s nephew who was living in Sodom at the time, taking everything he owned with them.
13-16 A fugitive came and reported to Abram the Hebrew. Abram was living at the Oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and Aner. They were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken prisoner, he lined up his servants, all of them born in his household—there were 318 of them—and chased after the captors all the way to Dan. Abram and his men split into small groups and attacked by night. They chased them as far as Hobah, just north of Damascus. They recovered all the plunder along with nephew Lot and his possessions, including the women and the people.
17-20 After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and his allied kings, the king of Sodom came out to greet him in the Valley of Shaveh, the King’s Valley. Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine—he was priest of The High God—and blessed him:
Blessed be Abram by The High God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth.
And blessed be The High God,
who handed your enemies over to you.
Abram gave him a tenth of all the recovered plunder.
21 The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me back the people but keep all the plunder for yourself.”
22-24 But Abram told the king of Sodom, “I swear to God, The High God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this solemn oath, that I’ll take nothing from you, not so much as a thread or a shoestring. I’m not going to have you go around saying, ‘I made Abram rich.’ Nothing for me other than what the young men ate and the share of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; they’re to get their share of the plunder.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, October 06, 2017
Read: 1 Peter 1:3–9
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
INSIGHT
Imagine meeting Jesus face to face—after knowingly denying ever knowing Him. Would we tell Him we haven’t been able to forgive ourselves? Would He know our heart and understand?
During the Last Supper, Peter couldn’t imagine he would deny Jesus once—let alone three times (John 13:37–38). But then the unthinkable happened (Matt. 26:69–75). Later, however, Jesus gave Peter three opportunities to express love to the One who so mercifully forgave him (John 21:15–18).
In that love and forgiveness Peter found a way forward. We too can move forward from the sins of our past through the love and forgiveness of Christ. -Mart DeHaan
If I Knew Then . . .
By Alyson Kieda
In his great mercy [God] has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3
On the way to work, I listened to the song “Dear Younger Me,” which asks: If you could go back, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self? As I listened, I thought about the bits of wisdom I might give my younger, less-wise self. Most of us have thought about how we might do things differently—if only we could do it all over again.
But the song illustrates that even though we have regrets from our past, all our experiences have shaped who we are. We can’t change the consequences of our choices or sin. Praise God we don’t have to carry the mistakes around with us. Because of what Jesus has done! “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”! (1 Peter 1:3).
We are forgiven because of what He’s done.
If we turn to Him in faith and sorrow for our sins, He will forgive us. On that day we’re made brand new and begin the process of being spiritually transformed (2 Cor. 5:17). It doesn’t matter what we’ve done (or haven’t done), we are forgiven because of what He’s done. We can move forward, making the most of today and anticipating a future with Him. In Christ, we’re free!
Dear Lord, I’m so thankful that through You we can be free of the burdens of the past—the mistakes, the pain, the sins—that hang so heavy. We don’t need to carry around regret or shame. We can leave them with You.
For further study, read Live Free.
Leave your heavy burdens with God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, October 06, 2017
The Nature of Regeneration
When it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me… —Galatians 1:15-16
If Jesus Christ is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this— I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature— His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God— “…until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, “Blessed are you…” (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, October 06, 2017
Dangerously Blind - #8020
New York City is a bit of a shock to any first-time visitor. It's especially jarring for someone who has spent her whole life on an Indian Reservation. Now, Linda was from the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and she was part of our ministry's Native American Youth Outreach Team that we call "On Eagle's Wings." She was able to see New York from a distance at first. There's the Empire State Building, there's the skyline, and she said she wanted to see it all up close. Ha! Well, that may have changed now that she has seen it up close. See, she went in with us when I spoke in the city one night and the traffic and the crowds; man, they were all over the place and they made her feel like maybe she was on a battlefield without a helmet. She also found certain aspects of the city exciting and she might go back. But as our team was driving along the Hudson River, we were headed for the George Washington Bridge and Linda must have been reflecting on her life on the reservation for a minute because she just looked up into the Big Apple sky and she just said two words, "No stars."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dangerously Blind."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 4:4. It's a very revealing statement from God's perspective. "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God." Basically, what's this saying? There is heavenly light that God wants you to see. It's the Good News of the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. And what's the Good News? Jesus loves you very much. He proved it by paying the sin penalty that you deserved when He died on the cross. He demonstrated His unbeatable power when He blew the doors off His grave and rose from the dead, and so Jesus is all the love, and all the meaning, and all the peace you've been looking for all these years.
But there's a problems with God's light. It's the same problem our Navajo friend had seeing those stars in New York City. The earth lights blinded her to the heavenly light. When that happens to people spiritually, they can literally miss Jesus and miss God's love, and miss heaven forever.
This says that the god of this world, who is the devil, has blinded our minds. We're surrounded by a lot of earth lights that blind us to the much brighter light of God. We're blinded by the lights of making money, or having fun, or important relationships, or busy schedules, even our religion. And we just keep ignoring Jesus, or postponing Jesus, or forgetting Jesus. We're blinded.
The devil, whose goal it is to destroy you, will use anything or anyone he can to keep you from seeing and following Jesus. His intention is very simple; to block your view of the real light until you've passed the point of no return. But today, maybe right now, the light is breaking through.
This could be your God day. You could tell Him right where you are, "Lord, I have run my life long enough. You are supposed to run my life. You gave it to me, and I'm tired of this sin wall that's been between us. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ, died to take that wall away to pay for my sin. And beginning this moment, Jesus, I'm Yours." I hope you'll take that step so you can be sure you belong to Him and secure your eternity once and for all.
That's what our website's there for. It's ANewStory.com. And it would be a great place to anchor to as you cross over (as the Bible says) "from death to life" today. I hope you'll go there. Check it out as soon as you can today.
For this moment, God has taken you away from the blinding light of all that earth stuff and all those earth people so you could get one clear look at the light of Jesus Christ. Now in the words of the Bible, "Seek the Lord while He may be found."
