Max Lucado Daily: FEAR OF GLOBAL CALAMITY
Life is a dangerous endeavor. And Christ tells us that things will get worse. We can expect heretical teachers. Stick to one question— is this person directing listeners to Jesus? If so, pray for that individual. If not, get out.
We can expect calamity. Christians will suffer the most. “Voice of the Martyrs” contends that more Christ-followers have been killed for their faith in the last century than all previous centuries combined. Even America suffers from increasing anger toward Christians.
Don’t give up. Jesus equipped his followers with farsighted courage. He said, “But he who stands firm to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). All things, big and small, flow out of the purpose of God and serve his good will. Though the world may collapse, the work of Christ will endure.
Read more Fearless
Psalm 64
A David Psalm
Listen and help, O God.
I’m reduced to a whine
And a whimper, obsessed
with feelings of doomsday.
2-6 Don’t let them find me—
the conspirators out to get me,
Using their tongues as weapons,
flinging poison words,
poison-tipped arrow-words.
They shoot from ambush,
shoot without warning,
not caring who they hit.
They keep fit doing calisthenics
of evil purpose,
They keep lists of the traps
they’ve secretly set.
They say to each other,
“No one can catch us,
no one can detect our perfect crime.”
The Detective detects the mystery
in the dark of the cellar heart.
7-8 The God of the Arrow shoots!
They double up in pain,
Fall flat on their faces
in full view of the grinning crowd.
9-10 Everyone sees it. God’s
work is the talk of the town.
Be glad, good people! Fly to God!
Good-hearted people, make praise your habit.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Job 37:14-24
“Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this?
Stop in your tracks! Take in God’s miracle-wonders!
Do you have any idea how God does it all,
how he makes bright lightning from dark storms,
How he piles up the cumulus clouds—
all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?
Why, you don’t even know how to keep cool
on a sweltering hot day,
So how could you even dream
of making a dent in that hot-tin-roof sky?
19-22 “If you’re so smart, give us a lesson in how to address God.
We’re in the dark and can’t figure it out.
Do you think I’m dumb enough to challenge God?
Wouldn’t that just be asking for trouble?
No one in his right mind stares straight at the sun
on a clear and cloudless day.
As gold comes from the northern mountains,
so a terrible beauty streams from God.
23-24 “Mighty God! Far beyond our reach!
Unsurpassable in power and justice!
It’s unthinkable that he’d treat anyone unfairly.
So bow to him in deep reverence, one and all!
If you’re wise, you’ll most certainly worship him.”
Insight
After three rounds of heated discussion, Job and his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job 2:11) are at an impasse in their debate of theodicy—the question of why a good God permits evil. Elihu, being a much younger man, had waited for his turn to speak and now gives his insights (chs. 32–37). Elihu was a Buzite (32:2). Buz was a son of Nahor, Abraham’s brother (Genesis 22:20–21), which makes Elihu a descendant of one of Abraham’s nephews. Concluding his rebuke in this fourth and final speech, Elihu highlights God’s power and majesty (chs. 36–37). He asks Job to “consider God’s wonders” (37:14) in controlling His creation, challenging Job to explain how God sovereignly controls the meteorological elements—the clouds, lightning, winds, skies, and sun (vv. 15–24). Elihu tells Job to fear and revere such a great God (v. 24).
By: K. T. Sim
Algae and Diatoms
Stop and consider God’s wonders. Job 37:14
“What’s a diatom?” I asked my friend. I was leaning over her shoulder looking at pictures on her cell phone she had taken through a microscope. “Oh, it’s like algae, but it’s harder to see. Sometimes you need a drop of oil on the lens or they have to be dead to see them,” she explained. I sat amazed as she scrolled through the pictures. I couldn’t stop thinking about the intricate detail God put into life that we can only see with a microscope!
God’s creation and works are endless. In the book of Job, one of Job’s friends, Elihu, points this out to Job as he struggles through his loss. Elihu challenges his friend, “Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God’s wonders. Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?” (Job 37:14–16). We, as humans, can’t begin to understand the complexity of God and His creation.
Even the parts of creation we can’t see reflect God’s glory and power. His glory surrounds us. No matter what we’re going through, God is working, even when we can’t see it and don’t understand. Let’s praise Him today, for “He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted” (Job 5:9). By Julie Schwab
Today's Reflection
Lord, thank You for the detail You put into creation and for being at work even when we can’t see it.
Welcome to Julie Schwab! Meet all our authors at odb.org/all-authors.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
The Dilemma of Obedience
Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision. —1 Samuel 3:15
God never speaks to us in dramatic ways, but in ways that are easy to misunderstand. Then we say, “I wonder if that is God’s voice?” Isaiah said that the Lord spoke to him “with a strong hand,” that is, by the pressure of his circumstances (Isaiah 8:11). Without the sovereign hand of God Himself, nothing touches our lives. Do we discern His hand at work, or do we see things as mere occurrences?
Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance (1 Samuel 3:9). Every time circumstances press in on you, say, “Speak, Lord,” and make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline— it is meant to bring me to the point of saying, “Speak, Lord.” Think back to a time when God spoke to you. Do you remember what He said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it 1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ears become more sensitive, and like Jesus, we will hear God all the time.
Should I tell my “Eli” what God has shown to me? This is where the dilemma of obedience hits us. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences and thinking, “I must shield ‘Eli,’ ” who represents the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli— he had to decide that for himself. God’s message to you may hurt your “Eli,” but trying to prevent suffering in another’s life will prove to be an obstruction between your soul and God. It is at your own risk that you prevent someone’s right hand being cut off or right eye being plucked out (see Matthew 5:29-30).
Never ask another person’s advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. “…I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood…” (Galatians 1:16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When a man’s heart is right with God the mysterious utterances of the Bible are spirit and life to him. Spiritual truth is discernible only to a pure heart, not to a keen intellect. It is not a question of profundity of intellect, but of purity of heart. Bringing Sons Unto Glory, 231 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Why Our Lives Come Out Flat - #8363
Oh, those firstborn children. Somewhere inside their brain is this tattoo: "I can do it myself." Wait. I'm a firstborn. So is our daughter. And when she decided at the age of five that she was going to bake a cake, she, of course, didn't need any help. Her "I'm going to bake a cake" moment was a good news/bad news announcement for me. Good news: my little girl is growing up. Bad news: I have to eat it. We heard a lot of banging of pans in the kitchen and ultimately the smells of something baking. Maybe this was going to work after all. Minutes later, my little girl came into the living room, almost tripping over her lower lip. She was sad. She explained: "Daddy, it came out flat." Then she brought in her first cake. Or maybe I should say pancake. It was that flat. That's when Sr. Baking Advisor, Mom, entered the picture to see what our daughter could learn from the cake that fell flat. She'd put in the milk, the eggs, the flour. But she just forgot one ingredient-the baking powder-the anti-flat ingredient in a cake.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why Our Lives Come Out Flat."
Our daughter's cake came out flat for one reason. There was one important ingredient missing. Just like the lives of so many of us who are followers of Christ. We've got a lot of right ingredients: we praise the Lord, we serve the Lord, we love the Lord, we study God's Word, we pray. But there's still this feeling there's got to be more. Our faith is real, it's important to us, but our lives feel so flat. There's something missing.
There is, in fact, a missing ingredient in many Christian lives and Christian churches. It's not missing in the lives and the teaching of the most powerful believers in history-those first Christians of the Book of Acts. From the record of their full and world-rocking lives comes this recipe for getting all God has. It's in Acts 3:19, our word for today from the Word of God. "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord."
Notice the order the ingredients come in. First, repent. Then, your sins are removed. Then, heaven's floodgates open and God sends the refreshing that He's wanted you to have all along. But He can't send it through the sin that's clogging your pipeline to heaven. Mark summarizes Jesus' first recorded sermon this way: "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" So, Jesus launches His public ministry by preaching repentance.
But today you can listen to hundreds of sermons, read hundreds of Christian books, meet with hundreds of Christian counselors, hear hundreds of Christian songs and never hear about repentance. It really is the missing ingredient in our lives. And because of that, we're missing so much that a holy God wants to give us.
Repentance begins by realizing that what you're doing is sin, and it's ugly. It's breaking the heart of the One who died for you. He died so you don't have to act like this. It's like realizing your car is headed in the wrong direction to get where you want to go. You have to do three things: you admit you're going the wrong way first of all. Then you've got to stop going the wrong way, and then you need to turn around and start heading the right direction. It's not just feeling sorry for your sin. The Bible says "godly sorrow leads to repentance" (2 Corinthians 7:10). Repentance is being so sorry for your sin that you set up your life to not do it anymore!
And maybe with all your worship and your work for the Lord, you've been missing the one ingredient that unlocks all God has for you-repentance. There's sin in the line between you and Him. But, you know, that could change today with your heartfelt repenting at the feet of the One who died for that sin. Because as long as you're missing repentance, you'll be missing God's best, and things are just going to keep coming out flat.