Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS A FATHER TO THE FATHERLESS
Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” A glimpse of God’s goodness changes us. If He is only slightly stronger than us, why pray? If He has limitations, questions, and hesitations, then you might as well pray to the Wizard of Oz.
Psalm 68:5-6 says that God is “a father to the fatherless. He sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity.”
Will you pray this with me? Dear God, today, remind me that you protect me. Be my father and defender. Defend those who’re weak and afraid and feel forgotten. Show up in their lives today. Thank you for giving me a spiritual family that can never be taken away. I pray this in the name of Jesus, amen.
At any point you’re only a prayer away from help!
Psalm 146
Hallelujah!
O my soul, praise God!
All my life long I’ll praise God,
singing songs to my God as long as I live.
3-9 Don’t put your life in the hands of experts
who know nothing of life, of salvation life.
Mere humans don’t have what it takes;
when they die, their projects die with them.
Instead, get help from the God of Jacob,
put your hope in God and know real blessing!
God made sky and soil,
sea and all the fish in it.
He always does what he says—
he defends the wronged,
he feeds the hungry.
God frees prisoners—
he gives sight to the blind,
he lifts up the fallen.
God loves good people, protects strangers,
takes the side of orphans and widows,
but makes short work of the wicked.
10 God’s in charge—always.
Zion’s God is God for good!
Hallelujah!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ecclesiastes 4:4–8
And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
5 Fools fold their hands
and ruin themselves.
6 Better one handful with tranquillity
than two handfuls with toil
and chasing after the wind.
7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!
Insight
The book of Ecclesiastes is properly placed amid the Wisdom books of the Old Testament (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs). This obscure book highlights the concerns of mankind from the beginning, with questions about God, earthly living and eternity, joy and sorrow, good and evil, death and dying, wisdom and folly. Ecclesiastes is like a twelve-chapter journal where the author records his musings and perspective on how life works. The writer is a realist (he doesn’t ignore the many complexities of life) and uses phrases that represent the author’s varied frustrations. The word meaningless is repeated thirty-five times, and the phrase chasing after the wind occurs nine times. But the writer is also a theist—he believes in God. He urges his readers to acknowledge and reverence their Maker. Why? “God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil” (12:14). By: Arthur Jackson
Greedy Grasping
Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6
In the ancient fable The Boy and the Filberts (Nuts), a boy sticks his hand into a jar of nuts and grabs a great fistful. But his hand is so full that it gets stuck in the jar. Unwilling to lose even a little of his bounty, the boy begins to weep. Eventually, he’s counseled to let go of some of the nuts so the jar will let go of his hand. Greed can be a hard boss.
The wise teacher of Ecclesiastes illustrates this moral with a lesson on hands and what they say about us. He compared and contrasted the lazy with the greedy when he wrote: “Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind” (4:5–6). While the lazy procrastinate until they’re ruined, those who pursue wealth come to realize their efforts are “meaningless—a miserable business!” (v. 8).
According to the teacher, the desired state is to relax from the toil of greedy grasping in order to find contentment in what truly belongs to us. For that which is ours will always remain. As Jesus said, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul” (Mark 8:36). By: Remi Oyedele
Reflect & Pray
What are you driven to pursue and grasp? How can you apply the wise words of Ecclesiastes in order to find tranquility?
God, thank You for Your provision and faithful presence in my life. Help me to live in a contented way, exhibiting true gratefulness to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
The Consecration of Spiritual Power
…by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. —Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness— I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ’s interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives— no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it— to be separated internally, not externally (see John 17:16).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God’s service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God’s part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, “Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ. Biblical Ethics, 111 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
Be Prepared to Stop - #8578
You've probably been speeding down the highway as I have at times, and all of a sudden you'll come to a construction area that says, "Slow down - 35 mph." So everyone, of course, slows down by two or three miles an hour. They're down to 57 now or something like that. And then you'll see as you get a little more into the construction area these words, "Be prepared to stop." Well, I don't want to be prepared to stop. I don't know if you're like me, but I calculate how many miles I've got to go, how long it's going to take. Let's see, "Sixty miles - sixty minutes." Something like that. I don't want to be prepared to stop. I'm prepared to do the speed limit. Sometimes we live our whole lives that way. We're speeding too fast to stop.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Be Prepared to Stop."
Our word for today from the Word of God - we are in the 18th chapter of the book of Luke. I'm going to begin reading at verse 35. "As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, 'Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.' He called out, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet. But he shouted all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me!' Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to Him. (The Bible says.) When he came near, Jesus asked him, 'What do you want me to do for you?' 'Lord, I want to see' he replied."
And, of course, as they say, the rest is history. Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus that day. But I think the words that leaped out at me from this passage are two simple little words. Did you catch them? "Jesus stopped." But then He always did. He always had time to stop for an individual who needed Him. Now, he had three good reasons that I can think of not to stop this day when He came into Jericho.
First of all, He was only days away from dying on the cross, and He knew it. He had His own burdens on His mind. The cross had to be what He was thinking about. I think He would be forgiven for not stopping, "I just can't. I've got so much on My mind."
Secondly, he had a crowd pressing on him. Thirdly, this guy seems to have been quite a nuisance. Everybody seemed to consider him a nuisance except Jesus. But in spite of those three reasons not to, Jesus stopped. You know, maybe you're speeding through your life much like I am; stressful, high pressure, rat race existence, always on your way to something or from something that's very demanding.
If you're like your Master, you'll stop when you hear the cries, for a child who needs a hug, for a mate who needs your shoulder, who might need your attention right now - who needs your ear, who needs you to listen, maybe it's a worker in your office. You've got so much to get done today, but there's someone there who obviously needs your love, your encouragement, needs your praise. Sometimes you'll stop and say to somebody, "How are you?" And they'll give you that hollow, "Okay, I guess." Woah! Do you have time to stop when it's not okay?
You can't always drop everything, I know that. But you could at least set a time and say, "Listen, I can't talk right now. But in an hour, I'll be out of this, and let's get together then."
Don't let the preoccupations of your agenda, your problems, your demands, even the un-lovable-ness of the person who needs you keep you from being there for them. Don't let those things make you forget that people are most important. They're going to last forever. So please, like the sign says, "Be prepared to stop."