Max Lucado Daily: IT’S NOT ALL UP TO YOU
God never promises an absence of distress. But he does promise the assuring presence of his Holy Spirit. The Spirit seals you. Ephesians 1:13 says, “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” God paid too high a price to leave you unguarded. And, according to Romans 5:5, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” Romans 8:26 says, “The Holy Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness.”
Whether we are feeble of soul or in body, it’s good to know it’s not up to us. All of us pray more than we think because the Holy Spirit turns our sighs into petitions and our tears into entreaties. He makes sure you get heard. And he makes sure you get home.
Read more Come Thirsty
Acts 7:1-21
Then the Chief Priest said, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
2-3 Stephen replied, “Friends, fathers, and brothers, the God of glory
appeared to our father Abraham when he was still in Mesopotamia, before the move to Haran, and told him, ‘Leave your country and family and go to the land I’ll show you.’
4-7 “So he left the country of the Chaldees and moved to Haran. After the death of his father, he immigrated to this country where you now live, but God gave him nothing, not so much as a foothold. He did promise to give the country to him and his son later on, even though Abraham had no son at the time. God let him know that his offspring would move to an alien country where they would be enslaved and brutalized for four hundred years. ‘But,’ God said, ‘I will step in and take care of those slaveholders and bring my people out so they can worship me in this place.’
8 “Then he made a covenant with him and signed it in Abraham’s flesh by circumcision. When Abraham had his son Isaac, within eight days he reproduced the sign of circumcision in him. Isaac became father of Jacob, and Jacob father of twelve ‘fathers,’ each faithfully passing on the covenant sign.
9-10 “But then those ‘fathers,’ burning up with jealousy, sent Joseph off to Egypt as a slave. God was right there with him, though—he not only rescued him from all his troubles but brought him to the attention of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He was so impressed with Joseph that he put him in charge of the whole country, including his own personal affairs.
11-15 “Later a famine descended on that entire region, stretching from Egypt to Canaan, bringing terrific hardship. Our hungry fathers looked high and low for food, but the cupboard was bare. Jacob heard there was food in Egypt and sent our fathers to scout it out. Having confirmed the report, they went back to Egypt a second time to get food. On that visit, Joseph revealed his true identity to his brothers and introduced the Jacob family to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and everyone else in the family, seventy-five in all. That’s how the Jacob family got to Egypt.
15-16 “Jacob died, and our fathers after him. They were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb for which Abraham paid a good price to the sons of Hamor.
17-19 “When the four hundred years were nearly up, the time God promised Abraham for deliverance, the population of our people in Egypt had become very large. And there was now a king over Egypt who had never heard of Joseph. He exploited our race mercilessly. He went so far as forcing us to abandon our newborn infants, exposing them to the elements to die a cruel death.
20-22 “In just such a time Moses was born, a most beautiful baby. He was hidden at home for three months. When he could be hidden no longer, he was put outside—and immediately rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter, who mothered him as her own son. Moses was educated in the best schools in Egypt. He was equally impressive as a thinker and an athlete.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 8:18-27
That’s why I don’t think there’s any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
Insight
In chapter 8 of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he uses the word groan or groaning three times (vv. 22–23, 26). However, each sigh comes with hope: All creation groans like a mother in labor (v. 22). With a taste (“firstfruit”) of Christ’s Spirit, we groan in anticipation of a better day (vv. 23–25; see also Galatians 5:22–23). And as we groan, the Spirit of God groans with us and for us (Romans 8:26–27)—understanding far better than we do that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (vv. 31–39).
Clear Communication
The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Romans 8:26
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 8:18-27
While traveling in Asia, my iPad (containing my reading material and many work documents) suddenly died, a condition described as “the black screen of death.” Seeking help, I found a computer shop and encountered another problem—I don’t speak Chinese and the shop’s technician didn’t speak English. The solution? He pulled up a software program in which he typed in Chinese, but I could read it in English. The process reversed as I responded in English and he read in Chinese. The software allowed us to communicate clearly, even in different languages.
At times, I feel like I’m unable to communicate and express my heart when I pray to my heavenly Father—and I’m not alone. Many of us struggle sometimes with prayer. But the apostle Paul wrote, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (Romans 8:26–27).
How amazing is the gift of the Holy Spirit! Better than any computer program, He clearly communicates my thoughts and desires in harmony with the Father’s purposes. The work of the Spirit makes prayer work! By Bill Crowder
Reflect & Pray
What challenges have you experienced in your prayer life? How can you lean on the Holy Spirit as you seek to pray more passionately to God?
Father, I thank You for the gift of Your Spirit and the privilege of prayer. Help me to lean on Your Spirit in moments when I don’t know how to pray.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 14, 2019
Get Moving! (1)
Abide in Me… —John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus— I have to do it myself. I have to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “Abide in Me”— in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord’s inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father’s plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord’s life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, “Yes, Lord, just a minute— I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then.” Get moving— begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 14, 2019
Father Fallout - #8460
When I was in South Africa, our hosts were kind enough to take me to an incredible game park where I could see African animals in the wild. And I did! Rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, and baboons - not the kind of animals you usually see wandering around, say, New York. But the highlight was coming around this curve and meeting a great bull elephant in the road. He put on a real show for us for several minutes. I picked up a local newspaper a while later and saw a news article with that game park as the dateline. The article was about the young male elephants there-the ones the rangers call the teenagers. Apparently, in recent months, those teenage male elephants had been on a reign of terror in the park, doing things that elephants don't usually do. They had attacked other animals like rhinos. They had attacked tourists, inflicting death or serious injury. And finally the park officials got it figured out what had gone wrong with these young males. When they were newborn, they were taken from another game park and brought to this one. But their fathers - the bull elephants - were not brought with them. So these teenage elephants grew up without a model of how a grownup male should act - and they were out of control.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Father Fallout."
It isn't just some young elephants that are out of control - it's some young people, isn't it? For the elephants, the cause is the absence of a father. The problem is the same for all too many young people, too. Yes, the young males, but even the young females as well.
It is obvious that God's created order assumes that a father will be a major force in shaping the life of a child. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from a sampling of God's statements about this central human relationship. Proverbs 13:1, "A wise son heeds his father's instruction." Proverbs 1:8 - "Listen, my son, to your father's instruction." Then from Proverbs 4, "Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention to gain understanding...When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender...he taught me and said, 'Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commandments and you will live.'"
That's just a sample I mean it's clear from God's Word: the father connection is critical in a son learning how to live. Even with elephants, if the male role model is not there, the young males don't know how to act or react...and they end up going out of control. A father deficit is a major crippler in any child's life.
You know, there can be a father deficit in a child's life because there is no father around...or because Dad is around but he's not really there. He's disconnected, he's distant, he's often unavailable. Or he's there but he's modeling the wrong things. Because God has set up the father-figure as being so influential in human development, a child - especially a son - will tend to make important what seems important to Dad. He'll make unimportant what seems unimportant to Dad. He'll react as Dad reacts. He'll treat different people as Dad treats them. And research shows that Dad's relationship with a daughter is really critical, too: she'll tend to relate to men the rest of her life as she relates to her father. I'll tell you, being a father is a powerful role and a massive responsibility.
So Colossians 3:21 says, "Father, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged." Ephesians 6:4 - "Father, do not exasperate your children; bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." Dad, you have enormous power to build up your child...or tear them down. And the ultimate responsibility for their spiritual development is not up to mom, it's up to you.
If you're a Dad, realize you have got nothing more important to do. And don't even try to do it without the power and the wisdom of God that belongs only to those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior.
In an African game park, they were reaping the awful fallout of children raised without a father to follow. With the priorities and the power of our Heavenly Father, we don't have to make the same mistake...and, as a result, reap a harvest of children who have no inner guidance system.