Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S PROMISES ARE GREAT
According to Peter, God’s promises aren’t just great, they are “very great.” They aren’t just valuable; they are “precious” (2 Peter 1:4). It is God’s great and precious promises that lead us into a new reality, a holy environment. They are direction signs intended to guide us away from the toxic swampland and into the clean air of heaven. They are strong boulders that form the bridge over which we walk from our sin to salvation. Promises that are the stitching in the spine of the Bible.
Receive them. Allow them to soak you like a spring shower. Let’s be what we were intended to be—people of the Promise. Fill your heart with hope, and let the devil himself hear you declare your belief in God’s goodness! Because God’s promises are unbreakable, our hope is unshakable!
Read more Unshakable Hope
Deuteronomy 14
1-2 You are children of God, your God, so don’t mutilate your bodies or shave your heads in funeral rites for the dead. You only are a people holy to God, your God; God chose you out of all the people on Earth as his cherished personal treasure.
3-8 Don’t eat anything abominable. These are the animals you may eat: ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, mountain sheep—any animal that has a cloven hoof and chews the cud. But you may not eat camels, rabbits, and rock badgers because they chew the cud but they don’t have a cloven hoof—that makes them ritually unclean. And pigs: Don’t eat pigs—they have a cloven hoof but don’t chew the cud, which makes them ritually unclean. Don’t even touch a pig’s carcass.
9-10 This is what you may eat from the water: anything that has fins and scales. But if it doesn’t have fins or scales, you may not eat it. It’s ritually unclean.
11-18 You may eat any ritually clean bird. These are the exceptions, so don’t eat these: eagle, vulture, black vulture, kite, falcon, the buzzard family, the raven family, ostrich, nighthawk, the hawk family, little owl, great owl, white owl, pelican, osprey, cormorant, stork, the heron family, hoopoe, bat.
19-20 Winged insects are ritually unclean; don’t eat them. But ritually clean winged creatures are permitted.
21 Because you are a people holy to God, your God, don’t eat anything that you find dead. You can, though, give it to a foreigner in your neighborhood for a meal or sell it to a foreigner.
Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
22-26 Make an offering of ten percent, a tithe, of all the produce which grows in your fields year after year. Bring this into the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates for worship and there eat the tithe from your grain, wine, and oil and the firstborn from your herds and flocks. In this way you will learn to live in deep reverence before God, your God, as long as you live. But if the place God, your God, designates for worship is too far away and you can’t carry your tithe that far, God, your God, will still bless you: exchange your tithe for money and take the money to the place God, your God, has chosen to be worshiped. Use the money to buy anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, or beer—anything that looks good to you. You and your family can then feast in the Presence of God, your God, and have a good time.
27 Meanwhile, don’t forget to take good care of the Levites who live in your towns; they won’t get any property or inheritance of their own as you will.
28-29 At the end of every third year, gather the tithe from all your produce of that year and put it aside in storage. Keep it in reserve for the Levite who won’t get any property or inheritance as you will, and for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who live in your neighborhood. That way they’ll have plenty to eat and God, your God, will bless you in all your work.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 06, 2018
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:12–24
Final Instructions and Benediction
12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,[a] encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Footnotes:
1 Thessalonians 5:14 Or disorderly, or undisciplined
INSIGHT
Do you ever feel that you’re always on the giving end? Or do you feel you’re always taking and receiving—with nothing to offer others but your own neediness? Take another look at Paul’s words to the Thessalonians. See if you can hear the wisdom of someone who knows there’s a time to give and a time to receive.
If you sense that you’re receiving more than your fair share of help, does Paul give you any idea about what you have to give even while receiving? Can you see that in acknowledging graciously the hard work of those who are caring for you, God can actually use you to encourage them?
If you seem to be giving to the point of exhaustion, see if you can hear any gentle wisdom here for yourself. - Mart DeHaan
The Joy of Giving
By Leslie Koh
Encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 1 Thessalonians 5:14
It was a dreary week. I had been feeling lethargic and listless, although I couldn’t figure out why.
Near the end of the week, I found out that an aunt had kidney failure. I knew I had to visit her—but to be honest, I felt like postponing the visit. Still, I made my way to her place, where we had dinner, chatted, and prayed together. An hour later, I left her home feeling upbeat for the first time in days. Focusing on someone else rather than myself had somehow improved my mood.
Psychologists have found that the act of giving can produce satisfaction, which comes when the giver sees the recipient’s gratitude. Some experts even believe that humans are wired to be generous!
Perhaps that’s why Paul, when encouraging the church in Thessalonica to build up their faith community, urged them to “help the weak” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Earlier, he had also cited Jesus’s words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). While this was said in the context of giving financially, it applies as well to the giving of time and effort.
When we give, we get an insight into how God feels. We understand why He’s so delighted to give us His love, and we share in His joy and the satisfaction of blessing others. I think I’ll be visiting my aunt again soon.
Father, You have made me to give to others just as You have given to me. Teach me to give so that I can truly reflect Your character and be more like You today.
The giver is the greatest recipient.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 06, 2018
The Cross in Prayer
In that day you will ask in My name… —John 16:26
We too often think of the Cross of Christ as something we have to get through, yet we get through for the purpose of getting into it. The Cross represents only one thing for us— complete, entire, absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ— and there is nothing in which this identification is more real to us than in prayer.
“Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). Then why should we ask? The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him. If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God’s grace.
“…I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you…” (John 16:26-27). Have you reached such a level of intimacy with God that the only thing that can account for your prayer life is that it has become one with the prayer life of Jesus Christ? Has our Lord exchanged your life with His vital life? If so, then “in that day” you will be so closely identified with Jesus that there will be no distinction.
When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason— God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 06, 2018
The Myth of Secret Sin - #8236
It's one of the most popular convention locations in the United States-Las Vegas. We can each guess as to what some of the reasons for its popularity might be. But it's become a popular destination for people other than conventioneers. You know, you might remember that advertising campaign; they were advertising Las Vegas as the place to go if you want to get away with something. Using some scenes that suggest some covert relationships and secret romantic liaisons, the tantalizing promise that flashes across the screen says: "What happens here stays here." Wrong!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Myth of Secret Sin."
This isn't about a particular city or an advertising campaign. It's about that dark side of all of us that the idea of "getting away with it" appeals to. There's this instinct in us that seems to say, "What you do when you're alone, or when you're away from home, when you're kind of 'off duty,' when no one knows you, you can do it and no one will ever know. It doesn't count." That's a lie!
Hebrews 4:13, our word for today from the Word of God, assures us that "nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." That couldn't be more blunt. God has seen it all. And if God knows, and He does, you're caught. Oh, the consequences, the judgment may not come instantaneously, but be sure they'll come. In the words of Numbers 32:23, "Be sure your sin will find you out." There's no such thing as anonymous sin or as sin you get away with.
What we just read describes God, the great Creator of the universe and the Creator of you, as "Him to whom we must give account." In other words, you'll stand before God one day, and no one knows when their appointment with God is going to be. There will be no excuses, no rationalizations, no cover-ups, no plea bargains-just reckoning. What you think is a secret isn't a secret with the only One who really matters. Romans 2:16, "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ" (Romans 2:16). Maybe you've fooled everyone. You can't fool Him.
The thought of facing the judgment of the God against whom we've all rebelled is nothing short of terrifying. As the Bible says, "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). But the amazing good news Jesus brought is that you and I don't have to pay that awful death penalty for our sin. Someone already did. Jesus did. In the words of the Bible, "He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Imagine, God's love for you is so great He poured the hell for your sin against Him on His own Son so you would never have to pay for it yourself; so you could spend eternity in the heaven that you could never deserve rather than the hell that we all deserve. He really, really loves you. He went a long way to forgive you.
But you have to first face your sin and see it for what it is. It's the defiant hijacking of your life from the God who made you. That's what it is. Then you have to decide that you're ready to turn from the sin that killed Jesus and place your life in His hands, which is where you were created to be anyway. And the weight of a lifetime of sinning, the weight of a lifetime of secrets and darkness can come off your shoulders this very day because, as the Bible says, "The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). He is alive today. You can tell Him right now, "Jesus, Your death for my sin is my only hope and I am Yours starting today."
Next step, would you go to our website, ANewStory.com, and let me show you there how you can be sure that you belong to Jesus Christ and that every sin you've ever committed can be erased from God's book today.
This can be the day of your new beginning, when God's spiritual shower makes you clean and every sin of your life is erased from His book. This could be the day that your judgment is cancelled.