Max Lucado Daily: HEAVEN’S TRIBUNAL
Some people will stand before God on the judgement day who didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. They spent a lifetime dishonoring God and hurting his people. They mocked his name and made life miserable for their neighbors.
Even our judicial system forces no defense on the accused. The defendant is offered an advocate, but if he chooses to stand before the judge alone, the system permits it. So does God. He offers his Son as an advocate. At the judgment Jesus will stand at the side of every person except those who refuse him. When their deeds are read, heaven’s tribunal will hear nothing—but silence! It’s a sobering truth in Acts 17:31, “The day is coming when God will judge the world.”
Read more Unshakable Hope
Joshua 24
The Covenant at Shechem
Joshua called together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He called in the elders, chiefs, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. Then Joshua addressed all the people:
2-6 “This is what God, the God of Israel, says: A long time ago your ancestors, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived to the east of the River Euphrates. They worshiped other gods. I took your ancestor Abraham from the far side of The River. I led him all over the land of Canaan and multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac. Then I gave Isaac Jacob and Esau. I let Esau have the mountains of Seir as home, but Jacob and his sons ended up in Egypt. I sent Moses and Aaron. I hit Egypt hard with plagues and then led you out of there. I brought your ancestors out of Egypt. You came to the sea, the Egyptians in hot pursuit with chariots and cavalry, to the very edge of the Red Sea!
7-10 “Then they cried out for help to God. He put a cloud between you and the Egyptians and then let the sea loose on them. It drowned them.
“You watched the whole thing with your own eyes, what I did to Egypt. And then you lived in the wilderness for a long time. I brought you to the country of the Amorites, who lived east of the Jordan, and they fought you. But I fought for you and you took their land. I destroyed them for you. Then Balak son of Zippor made his appearance. He was the king of Moab. He got ready to fight Israel by sending for Balaam son of Beor to come and curse you. But I wouldn’t listen to Balaam—he ended up blessing you over and over! I saved you from him.
11 “You then crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The Jericho leaders ganged up on you as well as the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites, but I turned them over to you.
12 “I sent the Hornet ahead of you. It drove out the two Amorite kings—did your work for you. You didn’t have to do a thing, not so much as raise a finger.
13 “I handed you a land for which you did not work, towns you did not build. And here you are now living in them and eating from vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.
14 “So now: Fear God. Worship him in total commitment. Get rid of the gods your ancestors worshiped on the far side of The River (the Euphrates) and in Egypt. You, worship God.
15 “If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we’ll worship God.”
16 The people answered, “We’d never forsake God! Never! We’d never leave God to worship other gods.
17-18 “God is our God! He brought up our ancestors from Egypt and from slave conditions. He did all those great signs while we watched. He has kept his eye on us all along the roads we’ve traveled and among the nations we’ve passed through. Just for us he drove out all the nations, Amorites and all, who lived in the land.
“Count us in: We too are going to worship God. He’s our God.”
19-20 Then Joshua told the people: “You can’t do it; you’re not able to worship God. He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won’t put up with your fooling around and sinning. When you leave God and take up the worship of foreign gods, he’ll turn right around and come down on you hard. He’ll put an end to you—and after all the good he has done for you!”
21 But the people told Joshua: “No! No! We worship God!”
22 And so Joshua addressed the people: “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen God for yourselves—to worship him.”
And they said, “We are witnesses.”
23 Joshua said, “Now get rid of all the foreign gods you have with you. Say an unqualified Yes to God, the God of Israel.”
24 The people answered Joshua, “We will worship God. What he says, we’ll do.”
25-26 Joshua completed a Covenant for the people that day there at Shechem. He made it official, spelling it out in detail. Joshua wrote out all the directions and regulations into the Book of The Revelation of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up under the oak that was in the holy place of God.
27 Joshua spoke to all the people: “This stone is a witness against us. It has heard every word that God has said to us. It is a standing witness against you lest you cheat on your God.”
28 Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his own place of inheritance.
29-30 After all this, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of God, died. He was 110 years old. They buried him in the land of his inheritance at Timnath Serah in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
31 Israel served God through the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him, who had themselves experienced all that God had done for Israel.
32 Joseph’s bones, which the People of Israel had brought from Egypt, they buried in Shechem in the plot of ground that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor (who was the father of Shechem). He paid a hundred silver coins for it. It belongs to the inheritance of the family of Joseph.
33 Eleazar son of Aaron died. They buried him at Gibeah, which had been allotted to his son Phinehas in the mountains of Ephraim.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 28, 2018
Read: Psalm 37:3–7, 23–24
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.[a]
4 Delight yourself in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
and your justice as the noonday.
7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!
Footnotes:
Psalm 37:3 Or and feed on faithfulness, or and find safe pasture
The steps of a man are established by the Lord,
when he delights in his way;
24 though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong,
for the Lord upholds his hand.
INSIGHT
A prayerful reading of Psalm 37 yields increased joy, assurance, and confidence in the Lord. After an opening exhortation to not be upset by the short-lived vitality and success of those who ignore the Lord (vv. 1–2), a series of commands follow that call for faithful dependence on Him (vv. 3–8). The remainder of the psalm includes commentary about the conduct of two kinds of people (the righteous and the wicked), who follow two different paths and end up at two different places (vv. 9–11, 20). In various ways, the wicked harass and prey upon the righteous (vv. 12–15, 32). But the righteous are not alone. The Lord—in whom they trust and delight and upon whom they wait—protects them, making them safe and secure and stable (vv. 16–17, 23–26, 32–33). The conclusion of the psalm speaks powerfully to those who place their faith in God. “The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him” (vv. 39–40). - Arthur Jackson
Asking God First
By Leslie Koh
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
Early in our marriage, I struggled to figure out my wife’s preferences. Did she want a quiet dinner at home or a meal at a fancy restaurant? Was it okay for me to hang out with the guys, or did she expect me to keep the weekend free for her? Once, instead of guessing and deciding first, I asked her, “What do you want?”
“I’m fine with either,” she replied with a warm smile. “I’m just happy you thought of me.”
At times I’ve wanted desperately to know exactly what God wanted me to do—such as which job to take. Praying for guidance and reading the Bible didn’t reveal any specific answers. But one answer was clear: I was to trust in the Lord, take delight in Him, and commit my way to Him (Psalm 37:3–5).
That’s when I realized that God usually gives us the freedom of choice—if we first seek to put His ways before our own. That means dropping choices that are plainly wrong or would not please Him. It might be something immoral, ungodly, or unhelpful toward our relationship with Him. If the remaining options please God, then we’re free to choose from them. Our loving Father wants to give us the desires of our hearts—hearts that take delight in Him (v. 4).
Teach me, O God, to put You first in everything I do. Show me how to take delight in You, that my heart will be transformed to be like Yours.
Do your decisions please God?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 28, 2018
The “Go” of Unconditional Identification
Jesus…said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor…and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." —Mark 10:21
The rich young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone’s personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus’ primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute “go” of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.
“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
“One thing you lack….” From Jesus Christ’s perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing.
“…sell whatever you have….” I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. “…come…and follow Me.” And the road is the way He went.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” My Utmost for His Highest, April 23, 773 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 28, 2018
Missing Your Destiny - #8275
I'm a city boy. Where I grew up, kids were about the only things that grew. We didn't even have grass in the backyard of the apartment building where I lived-just dirt. So over the years I've had a lot to learn from the farm girl I married, as well as my many friends who are farmers. I was traveling in the heartland with one of our leaders, and he had spent many years in farming, and he taught me a pretty memorable lesson as we were driving down a country road just past a cornfield. He was explaining how a farmer harvests his corn and how the end row may get knocked down when he turns the corner from one row to another. That leaves some corn stalks knocked down, lying horizontal and broken. And they're often in the shade of a stalk that's still standing near it. But don't count that stalk out. No, not just yet! The pollen from the overshadowing corn stalk filters down onto that broken corn. And amazingly, that plant that has everything going against it starts developing another crop and eventually you'll be able to pick corn off that old boy! (How about a city boy telling you that!)
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Missing Your Destiny."
My friend made a point that day that I haven't been able to forget. Cornstalks do what cornstalks were made to do-produce an ear of corn, even when those plants are wounded and beat down and in the shadows. Waoh! Actually, everything God made does what it was made to do: the sun lights our solar system, cotton plants produce cotton, bees pollinate flowers, water evaporates and condenses to give us rain. Everything does what God created it to do except us. And we humans do what we want to do.
The single question on that great life quiz is, "Why am I here?" If you flunk that one, you flunk life. The truth is the only One who knows why I'm here is the One who put me here. And God tells us what we're here for in just six simple but revolutionary words. They're in Colossians 1:16, which is our word for today from the Word of God. It says, speaking of Jesus Christ, "All things were (here are the six words) created by Him and for Him." You were created by Him; you were created for Him. Your life will never be fulfilling, and it will never know its purpose until you have Him. Like the earth was created to revolve around the sun, you and I were created to revolve around our Creator.
But we've made another choice. We treat people like we want to treat them, we say what we feel like saying, we do what we want to do, and one day at a time, we drift further from the only One who can make our life mean anything. We are the earth away from the sun that it was made to have at the center and it's not working. That's why your life, in spite of all those relationships and experiences and the religion you've tried, feels so lonely, so small, so unsatisfying and so full of regrets. You're away from the One who gave you your life. And if you die like this, you'll be away from Him forever.
Our only hope was the rescue that Jesus came to give us. The Bible says, "He brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have...the forgiveness of sins" because Jesus "made peace through His blood shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:13-14, 20). Only the death of Jesus in your place, for your sins, can erase a lifetime of going against God.
You don't need to waste one more day of this life being away from Him. You don't need to risk an eternity without Him. Not if you'll grab Jesus like a drowning person would grab a lifeguard and say, "Jesus, you're my only hope. I'm yours!" In that moment, you can find the God who made you, and you can finally find in Him the reason you're here.
Are you ready for that? You want that? You been looking for that? Tell Him, "Jesus I'm yours." Go to our website. You've got information there that will help you be sure that you now belong to Him. Our website is ANewStory.com.
This could be the day your life really begins. I mean the life and the destiny you were made for, which is belonging to the God you were made for.
