Max Lucado Daily: YOU BELONG TO GOD
When parents send their kids to camp, they have to sign certain documents. One of them asks who is the responsible party? If Johnny breaks his arm or Maria breaks out with measles, who will be responsible? Hopefully mom and dad are willing to sign their names.
God signed his! When you gave your life to him, he took responsibility for you. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14 NIV). You are a bride; he is your bridegroom. The church is being “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). You are his child; he is your father. “You are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir” (Galatians 4:7 NLT).
You can have peace in the midst of the storms of life because you are not alone. You belong to God!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Job 6
Job Replies to Eliphaz
God Has Dumped the Works on Me
1-7 Job answered:
“If my misery could be weighed,
if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,
It would be heavier than all the sand of the sea!
Is it any wonder that I’m screaming like a caged cat?
The arrows of God Almighty are in me,
poison arrows—and I’m poisoned all through!
God has dumped the whole works on me.
Donkeys bray and cows moo when they run out of pasture—
so don’t expect me to keep quiet in this.
Do you see what God has dished out for me?
It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach!
Everything in me is repulsed by it—
it makes me sick.
Pressed Past the Limits
8-13 “All I want is an answer to one prayer,
a last request to be honored:
Let God step on me—squash me like a bug,
and be done with me for good.
I’d at least have the satisfaction
of not having blasphemed the Holy God,
before being pressed past the limits.
Where’s the strength to keep my hopes up?
What future do I have to keep me going?
Do you think I have nerves of steel?
Do you think I’m made of iron?
Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Why, I don’t even have any boots!
My So-Called Friends
14-23 “When desperate people give up on God Almighty,
their friends, at least, should stick with them.
But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert—
one day they’re gushing with water
From melting ice and snow
cascading out of the mountains,
But by midsummer they’re dry,
gullies baked dry in the sun.
Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink
end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.
Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water,
tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.
They arrive so confident—but what a disappointment!
They get there, and their faces fall!
And you, my so-called friends, are no better—
there’s nothing to you!
One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.
It’s not as though I asked you for anything—
I didn’t ask you for one red cent—
Nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me.
So why all this dodging and shuffling?
24-27 “Confront me with the truth and I’ll shut up,
show me where I’ve gone off the track.
Honest words never hurt anyone,
but what’s the point of all this pious bluster?
You pretend to tell me what’s wrong with my life,
but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.
Are people mere things to you?
Are friends just items of profit and loss?
28-30 “Look me in the eyes!
Do you think I’d lie to your face?
Think it over—no double-talk!
Think carefully—my integrity is on the line!
Can you detect anything false in what I say?
Don’t you trust me to discern good from evil?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Read: Exodus 17:1–7
Water From the Rock
The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”
Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?”
3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah[a] and Meribah[b] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Footnotes:
Exodus 17:7 Massah means testing.
Exodus 17:7 Meribah means quarreling.
INSIGHT
Three days after the Israelites left Egypt, the water they brought along was depleted. Finding no drinkable water in the Desert of Shur, they grumbled against Moses, and God miraculously made bitter water into good water (Ex. 15:22–25). Soon their food supplies ran out, and they complained again. God miraculously fed them with manna and quail (16:1–36). As they approached Sinai, they complained yet again of no water (17:1–2). God had already shown them He could provide the water and food they needed. All they had to do was to trust Him! (Deut. 8:2; Ps. 81:7–8).
Consider how God has been faithful to provide for your physical needs. How has He satisfied your spiritual thirst? - Sim Kay Tee
Surviving the Wilderness
By Dennis Fisher
The message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Hebrews 4:2
In the 1960s, the Kingston Trio released a song called “Desert Pete.” The ballad tells of a thirsty cowboy who is crossing the desert and finds a hand pump. Next to it, Desert Pete has left a note urging the reader not to drink the water in the jar left there but to use its contents to prime the pump.
The cowboy resists the temptation to drink and uses the water as the note instructs. In reward for his obedience, he receives an abundance of cold, satisfying water. Had he not acted in faith, he would have had only a jar of unsatisfying, warm water to drink.
Help us to place our trust in You, Lord. You are what our heart thirsts after.
This reminds me of Israel’s journey through the wilderness. When their thirst became overwhelming (Ex. 17:1–7), Moses sought the Lord. He was told to strike the rock of Horeb with his staff. Moses believed and obeyed, and water gushed from the stone.
Sadly, Israel would not consistently follow Moses’s example of faith. Ultimately, “the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed” (Heb. 4:2).
Sometimes life can seem like an arid desert. But God can quench our spiritual thirst in the most unlikely circumstances. When by faith we believe the promises of God’s Word, we can experience rivers of living water and grace for our daily needs.
Help us to place our trust in You, Lord. You are what our heart thirsts after.
Only Jesus, the Living Water, can satisfy our thirst for God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Submitting to God’s Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. —1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, “If only I were somewhere else!” All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God’s almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul’s whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact— “…Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
“I chose you…” (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose— that He may be able to say, “This is My man, and this is My woman.” We have to be in God’s hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you “turn aside…to the right or the left…” (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Laser Giving - #8033
We were far from home in Phoenix, Arizona, living in New Jersey, when my wife had a gall bladder crisis. In fact, she was going to have to have her gall bladder removed. Well, I wasn't too happy about that happening so far from home, but God was in it. Because our friend who we were there with at a conference said, "Well, I just had this surgery not long ago, and our doctor here is one of the few in the country (at that time anyway) who is an expert at doing gall bladder surgery with lasers. Really? Well, instead of the six weeks that I thought my wife was going to have to recuperate in Arizona, why she was up and around in a very few days, because of the amazing power of a laser. Think about that. I mean, lasers can penetrate steel. They can help you get better eye sight, or take care of a gall bladder that needs to come out. It's pretty amazing power. Now, diffused light can't do that; only the focused light can do it. If my wife had been under just diffused light all that time, it wouldn't do anything about her gall bladder. But it took the focused light - that powerful energy - to really change things. There's awesome power when you focus the energy on one thing.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Laser Giving."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Philippians 1 beginning in verse 4, where Paul says, "In all my prayers for you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now." Imagine being partners with the spread of the Gospel through a dynamo like the Apostle Paul.
At the end of his letter in chapter 4 and beginning at verse 13, he writes about their support. He says, "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength, yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only: for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account."
Now these people found a piece of God's work, the Apostle Paul, and they invested heavily in it and they received great dividends. They lasered their giving on this one missionary. All of his fruit, all the people Paul reached; all that was credited to their eternal account. See, you and I live in a world that hits us with more causes than you could ever support. Think of that stack of mail you get from Christian organizations. Now, there's a pattern. You're like, "I don't know how I can possibly support all these things." Well, you cant. Isn't it a better idea to get a lot of stock in a few eternal investments?
I remember when my wife's grandmother went home to be with the Lord. Her Grandma had all these records that we went through and we found her list of "Giving and Praying" it was all about the organizations she really believed in. It started out in real tiny script. That list probably went back to the 1940's and then the print got larger as her eyes began to fail, and at the age of 99 she was still praying for and giving to the same ministries. God laid that on her heart and here was 50 years of praying and 50 years of canceled checks to match. She was a partner in the Gospel.
Now in our self-focused generation, we've lost that excitement of sharing stock in Eternity, Inc. My friend, Jeff, a baby boomer said, "I have decided I am drawing a line in my checkbook and that's all we really need to live on and from thereon I'm putting it into the work of God."
Would you ask the Lord for a piece of his broken heart for this broken world, for a particular need, for some group, for some area of the world? I encourage you to ask God for a few spiritual works or people who you could really believe in, and pray for them and stick with them and give to them. Laser your giving!
The way to have a winning part of God's work on earth is to have a lot of stock in a few eternal investments. See, diffused energy doesn't make much of a difference, but lasered energy changes everything. You know what? You laser your giving, you'll be reaping dividends forever.