Max Lucado Daily: IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
We all ask the question, “Am I somebody important?” It’s easy to feel anything but important when your ex takes your energy, or old age takes your dignity. Somebody important? Hardly. But remember this promise of God: you were created by God, in God’s image, for God’s glory.
God spoke. “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature, so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea; the birds in the air; the cattle; and, yes, the Earth itself and every animal that moves on the face of the Earth” (Genesis 1:26). God never declared, “Let us make oceans in our image,” or “birds in our likeness.” The heavens above reflect the glory of God, but they are not made in the image of God. Yet, you are! And because God’s promises are unbreakable, our hope in unshakable.
Read more Unshakable Hope
Deuteronomy 15
At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts. This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment: All-Debts-Are-Canceled—God says so. You may collect payment from foreigners, but whatever you have lent to your fellow Israelite you must write off.
4-6 There must be no poor people among you because God is going to bless you lavishly in this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, your very own land. But only if you listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, diligently observing every commandment that I command you today. Oh yes—God, your God, will bless you just as he promised. You will lend to many nations but won’t borrow from any; you’ll rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
7-9 When you happen on someone who’s in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don’t look the other way pretending you don’t see him. Don’t keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don’t count the cost. Don’t listen to that selfish voice saying, “It’s almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled,” and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He’ll call God’s attention to you and your blatant sin.
10-11 Give freely and spontaneously. Don’t have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers God, your God’s, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures. There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.
12-15 If a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman was sold to you and has served you for six years, in the seventh year you must set him or her free, released into a free life. And when you set them free don’t send them off empty-handed. Provide them with some animals, plenty of bread and wine and oil. Load them with provisions from all the blessings with which God, your God, has blessed you. Don’t for a minute forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and God, your God, redeemed you from that slave world.
For that reason, this day I command you to do this.
16-17 But if your slave, because he loves you and your family and has a good life with you, says, “I don’t want to leave you,” then take an awl and pierce through his earlobe into the doorpost, marking him as your slave forever. Do the same with your women slaves who want to stay with you.
18 Don’t consider this an unreasonable hardship, this setting your slave free. After all, he’s worked six years for you at half the cost of a hired hand.
Believe me, God, your God, will bless you in everything you do.
19-23 Consecrate to God, your God, all the firstborn males in your herds and flocks. Don’t use the firstborn from your herds as work animals; don’t shear the firstborn from your flocks. These are for you to eat every year, you and your family, in the Presence of God, your God, at the place that God designates for worship. If the animal is defective, lame, say, or blind—anything wrong with it—don’t slaughter it as a sacrifice to God, your God. Stay at home and eat it there. Both the ritually clean and unclean may eat it, the same as with a gazelle or a deer. Only you must not eat its blood. Pour the blood out on the ground like water.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
Read: 1 Kings 17:15–24
And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
Elijah Raises the Widow's Son
17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child's life[a] come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
Footnotes:
1 Kings 17:21 Or soul; also verse 22
INSIGHT
It can be easy to think that life will go well if we do everything we’re supposed to do. But today’s story reminds us that life isn’t a formula. The widow was faithful and obedient, and yet her son died. But we can be encouraged that there’s nothing too hard for God, for He is the one who can even bring the dead back to life (v. 23).
Are you feeling overwhelmed? Commit your situation to our faithful God.
For more about the book of Kings, check out our free online course at christianuniversity.org/OT219. - J.R. Hudberg
When the Bottom Drops Out
By Poh Fang Chia
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16
During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, more people were looking for work than there were jobs available. I was one of those job seekers. After nine anxious months, I landed employment as a copywriter. But the company soon fell on bad times and I was jobless again.
Ever been there? It seems like the worst is over when suddenly the bottom drops out on you. The widow at Zarephath could relate (1 Kings 17:12). Due to a famine, she was preparing the last meal for herself and her son when the prophet Elijah requested a bite to eat. She reluctantly agreed and God provided a continuous supply of flour and oil (vv. 10–16).
But then her son fell ill. His health declined until he stopped breathing. The widow cried out, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” (v. 18).
At times, we may want to respond like the widow—wondering if God is punishing us. We forget that bad things can happen in this fallen world.
Elijah took the concern to God, praying earnestly and honestly for the boy, and God raised him up! (vv. 20–22).
When the bottom drops out on us, may we—like Elijah—realize that the faithful One will not desert us! We can rest in God’s purposes as we pray for understanding.
For help on the topic of peace, read discoveryseries.org/q1126.
God is good in both the good times and the bad.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
Prayer in the Father’s House
…they found Him in the temple….And He said to them, "…Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?" —Luke 2:46, 49
Our Lord’s childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood— His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father’s house? Is the Son of God living in His Father’s house within me?
The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong— when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. “…I must be about My Father’s business”— and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father’s house.
Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord’s life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father’s house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.
The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
When God Says It's Time to Move - #8237
When our son and his family lived in another state, man, we cherished visits from him, his wife and our beautiful granddaughter. She was two at the time, but she seemed to have the vocabulary of like a five-year-old. Besides being unexplainably beautiful (being my granddaughter, that's miraculous), she really knew how to communicate – with words, with gestures, with facial expressions. We loved our time with her, and she seemed to love her time with us. But, well, this wasn't home. They lived many miles from here. She needed to be home ultimately, sleeping in her bed, playing with her toys, being around the people she loves there, and enjoying her personal world. This is where she visited. That's where she lived. She was in the car with Mommy and Daddy, all strapped in her toddler seat and ready to pull out of the driveway to head home. Oh how she cried! She begged me to get in. She begged me to sit down. Her crying broke a grandparent's heart. But once she was home she loved being where she lived. It's just that leaving is so hard.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When God Says It's Time to Move."
The reason so many of us never get where we're supposed to be in life is because we don't want to leave where we are. And leaving is just too hard; it's too scary. It's the deal-breaker. So even when God says, "It's time to make a move," we just hold on tight and say, "I can't leave." But so often in the plans of God, leaving is the door to your destiny.
You can see that in the amazing life of one of God's great heroes, Abraham. Ahead of him was the fathering of the Jewish nation and an exciting place of leadership in the purposes of God. But first he had to leave. In fact, God's first recorded word to Abraham – called Abram at this point – is "leave." Listen to Genesis 12:1-2, our word for today from the Word of God. "The Lord said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.'" Imagine! Leave the people you know and love, the place you know, and the security you have – for "a land that I will show you." Not even a brochure. Not even a briefing from someone who's been there. Just leaving the known for the unknown.
The New Testament describes Abraham's life-changing response this way: "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). If you don't leave when God says leave, you miss His best and you just settle for what's safe. If you decide based on what's safe and comfortable, you will almost surely miss God's great plans for you. Jesus had to leave heaven to become our Savior. Simon left his fishing business and became the apostle Peter; Levi left his tax collector's office and became the apostle Matthew. Leaving is so often the door to your destiny, if it's God who's asking you to leave, not just your restlessness or your discontentment.
Maybe God's summoning you to something unknown but unbelievable. But you can't go there without leaving – maybe leaving a relationship, a position, a sin, your comfort zone, the way you've always done things, without leaving your addiction to controlling everything. Why would you take this hard step? Early in our ministry, God called a dedicated young woman from a lucrative job with one of the most prestigious modeling firms in the world to join us in rescuing the lost. On her application, under reason for leaving this dream job, she simply wrote one word: "Jesus."
That's why you leave. Because He left heaven for you. Because your life now belongs to Him. And because anyone who loved you enough to die for you will never do you wrong. If He's asking you to leave behind the known for the unknown, don't miss your destiny by holding on. Remember, those who never get out of the boat never know what it is to walk on water!