Max Lucado Daily: DON’T GIVE UP ON GOD!
Much of life is spent fixing lunches; turning in assignments; changing diapers; and paying bills. Routine…regular…more struggle than strut. You thought marriage was going to be a lifelong date? You thought having kids was going to be like baby-sitting? You thought the company who hired you wanted to hear all the ideas you had in college? Then you learned otherwise.
The honeymoon ended. Oh, there are moments of glamour, days of celebration. We have our share of feasts, but we also have our share of baloney sandwiches. And to have the first we must endure the second. I’ve learned that God comes. And, in the right way, he appears. So don’t bail out. Don’t give up. He is too wise to forget you and too loving to hurt you. When you can’t see him, trust him. He is praying a prayer for you that he himself will answer.
Read more A Gentle Thunder
Ruth 2
It so happened that Naomi had a relative by marriage, a man prominent and rich, connected with Elimelech’s family. His name was Boaz.
2 One day Ruth, the Moabite foreigner, said to Naomi, “I’m going to work; I’m going out to glean among the sheaves, following after some harvester who will treat me kindly.”
Naomi said, “Go ahead, dear daughter.”
3-4 And so she set out. She went and started gleaning in a field, following in the wake of the harvesters. Eventually she ended up in the part of the field owned by Boaz, her father-in-law Elimelech’s relative. A little later Boaz came out from Bethlehem, greeting his harvesters, “God be with you!” They replied, “And God bless you!”
5 Boaz asked his young servant who was foreman over the farm hands, “Who is this young woman? Where did she come from?”
6-7 The foreman said, “Why, that’s the Moabite girl, the one who came with Naomi from the country of Moab. She asked permission. ‘Let me glean,’ she said, ‘and gather among the sheaves following after your harvesters.’ She’s been at it steady ever since, from early morning until now, without so much as a break.”
8-9 Then Boaz spoke to Ruth: “Listen, my daughter. From now on don’t go to any other field to glean—stay right here in this one. And stay close to my young women. Watch where they are harvesting and follow them. And don’t worry about a thing; I’ve given orders to my servants not to harass you. When you get thirsty, feel free to go and drink from the water buckets that the servants have filled.”
10 She dropped to her knees, then bowed her face to the ground. “How does this happen that you should pick me out and treat me so kindly—me, a foreigner?”
11-12 Boaz answered her, “I’ve heard all about you—heard about the way you treated your mother-in-law after the death of her husband, and how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth and have come to live among a bunch of total strangers. God reward you well for what you’ve done—and with a generous bonus besides from God, to whom you’ve come seeking protection under his wings.”
13 She said, “Oh sir, such grace, such kindness—I don’t deserve it. You’ve touched my heart, treated me like one of your own. And I don’t even belong here!”
14 At the lunch break, Boaz said to her, “Come over here; eat some bread. Dip it in the wine.”
So she joined the harvesters. Boaz passed the roasted grain to her. She ate her fill and even had some left over.
15-16 When she got up to go back to work, Boaz ordered his servants: “Let her glean where there’s still plenty of grain on the ground—make it easy for her. Better yet, pull some of the good stuff out and leave it for her to glean. Give her special treatment.”
17-18 Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. When she threshed out what she had gathered, she ended up with nearly a full sack of barley! She gathered up her gleanings, went back to town, and showed her mother-in-law the results of her day’s work; she also gave her the leftovers from her lunch.
19 Naomi asked her, “So where did you glean today? Whose field? God bless whoever it was who took such good care of you!”
Ruth told her mother-in-law, “The man with whom I worked today? His name is Boaz.”
20 Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Why, God bless that man! God hasn’t quite walked out on us after all! He still loves us, in bad times as well as good!”
Naomi went on, “That man, Ruth, is one of our circle of covenant redeemers, a close relative of ours!”
21 Ruth the Moabitess said, “Well, listen to this: He also told me, ‘Stick with my workers until my harvesting is finished.’”
22 Naomi said to Ruth, “That’s wonderful, dear daughter! Do that! You’ll be safe in the company of his young women; no danger now of being raped in some stranger’s field.”
23 So Ruth did it—she stuck close to Boaz’s young women, gleaning in the fields daily until both the barley and wheat harvesting were finished. And she continued living with her mother-in-law.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Read: Romans 14:1–13
Do Not Pass Judgment on One Another
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master[a] that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess[b] to God.”
12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Do Not Cause Another to Stumble
13 Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
Footnotes:
Romans 14:4 Or lord
Romans 14:11 Or shall give praise
Agreeing to Disagree
By Mart DeHaan
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace. Romans 14:19
I remember hearing my dad talk about how difficult it was to walk away from unending arguments over differing interpretations of the Bible. By contrast he recalled how good it was when both sides agreed to disagree.
But is it really possible to set aside irreconcilable differences when so much seems to be at stake? That’s one of the questions the apostle Paul answers in his New Testament letter to the Romans. Writing to readers caught in social, political, and religious conflict, he suggests ways of finding common ground even under the most polarized conditions (14:5–6).
According to Paul, the way to agree to disagree is to recall that each of us will answer to the Lord not only for our opinions but also for how we treat one another in our differences (v. 10).
Conditions of conflict can actually become occasions to remember that there are some things more important than our own ideas—even more than our interpretations of the Bible. All of us will answer for whether we have loved one another, and even our enemies, as Christ loved us.
Now that I think of it, I remember that my dad used to talk about how good it is not just to agree to disagree but to do so with mutual love and respect.
Father, please enable us to be patient and kind with those who don’t agree with us about anything or everything.
We can agree to disagree—in love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Faith
Without faith it is impossible to please Him… —Hebrews 11:6
Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. “We know that all things work together for good…” (Romans 8:28) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God’s providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, “Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I’m going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word” (for example, see Matthew 6:33). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can’t have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.
The Place of Help
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Trusting the Pilot - #8297
When our friends heard that our family had been invited to Alaska for a week of ministry, they were all excited for us. They said, "Oh, it's beautiful, you're going to love it! When are you going?" "February." "Oh." See, I get invited to places like Florida and Arizona in the summer, and Alaska in the dead of winter. We had a wonderful week, but the time came for my wife and kids to fly home because they had to get back to school, and I stayed for several more days of ministry. We were out on the Kenai Peninsula, in an area that felt fairly remote. We arrived at this small airport one night to rendezvous with our pilot. Dick was a missionary pilot, trained by Moody Bible Institute's top-flight pilot's school and he was experienced in flying into many remote areas of Alaska. But that night his cargo was the people I love most. My first cause for a little worry was his request to help him push the plane out of the hangar and onto the runway. That was new! Yeah, and it was icy. I had never pushed my plane into position before. I didn't like that runway. It was covered with thick, deeply-rutted ice from one end to the other. And at the end of this fairly short runway was a big stand of trees you could run into. Oh yeah, and it was heavily overcast-no moon, no stars. Well, I helped my wife and three children crowd into Dick's little Cessna, I waved good-bye as they started bouncing and maneuvering down that icy runway. I really didn't like the conditions, but I was okay because I really trusted the pilot.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Trusting the Pilot."
That night in Alaska I had to let go of people who meant an awful lot to me. They were out of my hands, and I had to trust them to the care of someone who could take them where I never could; someone who was totally trustworthy, even though he was carrying them into the unknown-unknown for me and for them but not for the pilot. He flew skillfully that night and he delivered my family safely to their destination.
Paul wrote about that kind of trust choice in 2 Timothy 1:12, and it is our word for today from the Word of God. Paul was a prisoner of Nero in a Roman prison and he knows he will probably not come out of this one alive. Everything that matters to him is out of his hands; the people he loves, his life's work, his own future. Maybe some of that sounds strangely familiar. It's out of your hands now, like my family disappearing into that Alaskan night in a little airplane. Here are Paul's words, "I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day." In other words, "I've released it all into Jesus' hands. I'm trusting Him to care for it all. He's certainly able to guard what I love." Or, in the context of my Alaskan farewell to my loved ones, "I can trust the Pilot."
Right now you may be at one of those "letting go" crossroads. But you're having a hard time putting what you care so much about on the plane. You're worrying a lot, you're holding onto what you should be releasing. You're making the mistake of looking at the conditions instead of focusing on the Pilot-Jesus, who has never crashed, never lost anything that was entrusted to Him.
That night in Alaska, I could have said, "Wait! I think I'll fly the plane!" That would have been dumb! But that's what we often do at a "letting go" crossroads. We try to fly the plane, we scheme, we push, we panic, we control, or we worry ourselves sick. And because we won't release something or someone we care about, we interfere with where the Lord wants to take them-where you could never take them.
The circumstances may look uncertain...unsettling. But the engines are running. It's flight time and you either have to hold on tighter or let go. The whole situation boils down to a decisive question, "Can Jesus be trusted?" His cross answers that. His track record answers that. Today, let it go, let her go, let him go. They're in much better hands with the Pilot in charge than they could ever be with you in charge. This Pilot - oh, He will keep them safe!
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