Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS FOR YOU
Paul asks the question in Romans 8:31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The question isn’t simply, “Who can be against you?” You could answer that one. Who is against you? Disease, inflation, corruption, and exhaustion. Calamities confront us and fears imprison. Were Paul’s question, “Who can be against us?” we could list our foes much easier than we could fight them.
God is for us. God is for us. God is for us! Your parents may have forgotten you, your teachers may have neglected you, your siblings may be ashamed of you; but within reach of your prayers is the maker of the oceans. God! God is for you. Not may be, not has been, not was…but God is! He is for you. Today. At this hour. At this minute. As you hear this, He is with you. God is for you!
From Lucado Inspirational Reader
Job 26
Job’s Defense
God Sets a Boundary Between Light and Darkness
1-4 Job answered:
“Well, you’ve certainly been a great help to a helpless man!
You came to the rescue just in the nick of time!
What wonderful advice you’ve given to a mixed-up man!
What amazing insights you’ve provided!
Where in the world did you learn all this?
How did you become so inspired?
5-14 “All the buried dead are in torment,
and all who’ve been drowned in the deep, deep sea.
Hell is ripped open before God,
graveyards dug up and exposed.
He spreads the skies over unformed space,
hangs the earth out in empty space.
He pours water into cumulus cloud-bags
and the bags don’t burst.
He makes the moon wax and wane,
putting it through its phases.
He draws the horizon out over the ocean,
sets a boundary between light and darkness.
Thunder crashes and rumbles in the skies.
Listen! It’s God raising his voice!
By his power he stills sea storms,
by his wisdom he tames sea monsters.
With one breath he clears the sky,
with one finger he crushes the sea serpent.
And this is only the beginning,
a mere whisper of his rule.
Whatever would we do if he really raised his voice!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Read: Psalm 98
A psalm.
1 Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
9 let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
INSIGHT
Psalm 98 is jubilant in its invitation to praise God. In verses 4–6, the psalmist exalts God as King. He enlists the harp, trumpets, and horn to accompany the human voices lifted in praise and adoration of the sovereign King. In verses 7–9, God is praised for being the righteous Judge. Marvelous word pictures are used to magnify His justice. The fullness of the sea is to roar, the rivers are to clap their hands, and the mountains are to be joyful together. Voice, instruments, and nature join in to praise God. We too can enter into this same spirit by joyfully worshiping the Lord for His mighty power and holy character.
Today ponder how you can worship God who is both our Creator and righteous Judge. - Dennis Fisher
Make a Joyful Noise
By Linda Washington
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music. Psalm 98:4
Back when I was searching for a church to attend regularly, a friend invited me to a service at her church. The worship leaders led the congregation in a song I particularly loved. So I sang with gusto, remembering my college choir director’s advice to “Project!”
After the song, my friend’s husband turned to me and said, “You really sang loud.” This remark was not intended as a compliment! After that, I self-consciously monitored my singing, making sure I sang softer than those around me and always wondering if the people around me judged my singing.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music. Psalm 98:4
But one Sunday, I noticed the singing of a woman in the pew beside me. She seemed to sing with adoration, without a trace of self-consciousness. Her worship reminded me of the enthusiastic, spontaneous worship that David demonstrated in his life. In Psalm 98, in fact, David suggests that “all the earth” should “burst into jubilant song” in worship (v. 4).
Verse one of Psalm 98 tells us why we should worship joyfully, reminding us that “[God] has done marvelous things.” Throughout the psalm, David recounts these marvelous things: God’s faithfulness and justice to all nations, His mercy, and salvation. Dwelling on who God is and what He’s done can fill our hearts with praise.
What “marvelous things” has God done in your life? Thanksgiving is the perfect time to recall His wondrous works and give God thanks. Lift your voice and sing!
Lord, thank You for who You are and for what You’ve done.
Worship takes the focus
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher…” (Matthew 10:24).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Goodbye, Backpack - #8053
I was speaking at a Christian workers' conference in Alaska, and a veteran missionary approached me afterward with some intriguing information. She and her husband have worked for many years with an Indian tribe in Alaska - a tribe that has an interesting custom. If you're from that tribe, they said you grow up learning about your backpack. It's not a real backpack, but it's a symbol of a very real human experience. The idea is that whenever you do something wrong, a rock goes in your backpack and you carry on your back all the weight of all your mistakes all your life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Goodbye, Backpack."
When I heard about that, I couldn't help but think what an accurate image that is no matter what tribe you are from. In a sense, we really do carry around with us the weight of the things we've done wrong, the people we've hurt, the failures, the sins. With our backpack comes this feeling of guilt, and shame, and regret. Many people carry their backpack till the day they die, but you don't have to be one of them.
In our word for today from the Word of God, there is a very moving statement of what God has done to liberate us from the load of a lifetime of our sin. Speaking of Jesus, the Bible says in Isaiah 53:4, "Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows...He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our inequities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him."
God says that Jesus, His one and only Son, took the backpack that was full of my sin, put it on Himself and carried it all the way to an old, rugged cross. He carried yours, too. If He hadn't, there would be absolutely no way you or I could have a chance of going to heaven. After all, when the Bible describes heaven, it says, "Nothing impure will ever enter it" (Revelation 21:27). You can't get into heaven if you've still got the backpack of your sin.
Some of us hope we might be good enough to get into heaven. Right? That's probably the main reason we get involved in our religion and our church. But the Bible makes two things very clear: one, every one of us has this backpack called sin. It says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Two, there is no good we can do that will pay for our sin. In God's own words now, "He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy" (Titus 3:5). God's bottom line is this statement, Hebrews 9:22: "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness."
That's why Jesus allowed Himself to be pierced, and crushed, and nailed to a cross, to pay the penalty for every sin you and I have ever done, so we don't have to. I've been with a lot of people the day they finally put their total trust in Jesus to forgive their sin and make them right with God. And often they have described the feeling this way. They'll say, "I feel like a hundred-pound weight's been lifted from my back." Well, it has. The deadly backpack of sin is gone.
Yours can be, too, today, if you will, in your heart, make your way up that hill where Jesus died and leave your backpack, full of the sins of a lifetime, at the foot of His cross. If you don't belong to Jesus, and you want to, oh for goodness sake, tell Him right now, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
I've actually set up our website to be in a place of a new beginning where you can find right there in front of you the information from God's own Word about how to be sure every sin has been erased from God's Book, and you're going to heaven when you die. Our website is ANewStory.com. I hope you can remember that and go there before this day's over.
Jesus carried all your sins to His cross, so you don't ever have to carry them again.
