Max Lucado Daily: TEAM UP
What if the missing ingredient for changing the world is teamwork? “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action” (Matthew 18:19 MSG). This is an astounding promise!
The Jerusalem church found a way to work together. They found common ground in the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. Because they did, lives were changed. As you and I work together, the same will happen. The congregation is a microcosm of God’s plan. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. And when we do… “God’s great blessing was upon them all. There were no needy people among them” (Acts 4:33–34). Those who suffer belong to all of us. And if all of us respond, there is hope.
1 Chronicles 20
That spring, the time when kings usually go off to war, Joab led the army out and ravaged the Ammonites. He then set siege to Rabbah. David meanwhile was back in Jerusalem. Joab hit Rabbah hard and left it in ruins. David took the crown off the head of their king. Its weight was found to be a talent of gold and set with a precious stone. It was placed on David’s head. He hauled great quantities of loot from the city and put the people to hard labor with saws and picks and axes. This is what he did to all the Ammonites. Then David and his army returned to Jerusalem.
4-8 Later war broke out with the Philistines at Gezer. That was the time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai of the clan of giants. The Philistines had to eat crow. In another war with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the Gittite whose spear was like a ship’s boom. And then there was the war at Gath that featured a hulking giant who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and foot—yet another from the clan of giants. When he mocked Israel, Jonathan son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him. These came from the clan of giants and were killed by David and his men.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Galatians 5:13–18
Life by the Spirit
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.h But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesha;i rather, serve one anotherj humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”b k 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit,l and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.m 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.n They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateverc you want.o 18 But if you are led by the Spirit,p you are not under the law.q
Insight
Paul’s core element of a life lived in the Spirit is found in Galatians 5:14: “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” This is significant because the apostle was writing to a community of believers in Jesus who were being lured away from the grace of Christ and back into the law of Moses. So Paul was reminding the Galatians that the issue wasn’t maintaining the smallest details of the law, but embracing the law’s goal—“love your neighbor as yourself.” In focusing on this priority, the apostle was lining up with a consistent message in the Scriptures voiced by Jesus (Mark 12:31), Paul again in Romans 13:9, and James (James 2:8)—all quoting from Moses (Leviticus 19:18). The ethical challenge of life in Christ couldn’t be clearer.
For more on Galatians, see Knowing God through Galatians at discoveryseries.org/sb224. By: Bill Crowder
Walking with the Spirit
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
Ten thousand hours. That’s how long author Malcolm Gladwell suggests it takes to become skillful at any craft. Even for the greatest artists and musicians of all time, their tremendous inborn talent wasn’t enough to achieve the level of expertise that they would eventually attain. They needed to immerse themselves in their craft every single day.
As strange as it might seem, we need a similar mentality when it comes to learning to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians, Paul encourages the church to be set apart for God. But Paul explained that this couldn’t be achieved through merely obeying a set of rules. Instead we’re called to walk with the Holy Spirit. The Greek word that Paul uses for “walk” in Galatians 5:16 literally means to walk around and around something, or to journey (peripateo). So for Paul, walking with the Spirit meant journeying with the Spirit each day—it’s not just a one-time experience of His power.
May we pray to be filled with the Spirit daily—to yield to the Spirit’s work as He counsels, guides, comforts, and is simply there with us. And as we’re “led by the Spirit” in this way (v. 18), we become better and better at hearing His voice and following His leading. Holy Spirit, may I walk with You today, and every day! By: Chin Peter
Reflect & Pray
While being indwelt by the Holy Spirit when we receive salvation is a one-time event, how does this differ from being filled or walking with the Spirit? How have you been exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit?
Father, help me to experience the presence and leading of the Holy Spirit today, so that I might walk with You and live in a way that pleases You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Do You Walk In White?
We were buried with Him…that just as Christ was raised from the dead…even so we also should walk in newness of life. —Romans 6:4
No one experiences complete sanctification without going through a “white funeral” — the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crucial moment of change through death, sanctification will never be more than an elusive dream. There must be a “white funeral,” a death with only one resurrection— a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can defeat a life like this. It has oneness with God for only one purpose— to be a witness for Him.
Have you really come to your last days? You have often come to them in your mind, but have you really experienced them? You cannot die or go to your funeral in a mood of excitement. Death means you stop being. You must agree with God and stop being the intensely striving kind of Christian you have been. We avoid the cemetery and continually refuse our own death. It will not happen by striving, but by yielding to death. It is dying— being “baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3).
Have you had your “white funeral,” or are you piously deceiving your own soul? Has there been a point in your life which you now mark as your last day? Is there a place in your life to which you go back in memory with humility and overwhelming gratitude, so that you can honestly proclaim, “Yes, it was then, at my ‘white funeral,’ that I made an agreement with God.”
“This is the will of God, your sanctification…” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Once you truly realize this is God’s will, you will enter into the process of sanctification as a natural response. Are you willing to experience that “white funeral” now? Will you agree with Him that this is your last day on earth? The moment of agreement depends on you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We all have the trick of saying—If only I were not where I am!—If only I had not got the kind of people I have to live with! If our faith or our religion does not help us in the conditions we are in, we have either a further struggle to go through, or we had better abandon that faith and religion. The Shadow of an Agony, 1178 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
The 3-Open Prayer - #8613
I was supposed to be speaking for an event at the Rosemont Horizon. It's this massive arena near Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and it's surrounded by a "spaghetti bowl" of expressway ramps. My driver was unfamiliar with the roads around the arena, so we spent an exciting few minutes circling the Horizon on one ramp after another. We just couldn't seem to find the ramp or the exit that went to the destination we wanted. It wasn't that we couldn't see the auditorium the whole time. Oh, I saw it plenty of times. It was just because we didn't know how to get into it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The 3-Open Prayer."
"I want to get there. I just don't know how to get into it!" That's the cry of a lot of us who want to get to someone we care about with the message of Jesus. We understand the eternal urgency of getting there, but it's so hard to know how to get into it. Right?
Actually, there is a unique, Holy Spirit-directed approach for each individual life. But there are also some steps any believer can take in any situation. The starting point for any rescue conversation about Jesus is not talking to a person about God, but talking to God about that person. And the way to "get into" communicating Christ to someone may well be what I call the "3-open prayer." And I can't tell you how many people this has changed their life and changed their entire outlook on how they can share Jesus.
It's actually based on our word for today from the Word of God in Colossians 4:3-4. Paul says, "Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ...Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should." Using this prayer as a launching pad for your own, you can pave the way for eternity-talk by daily asking God for three supernatural preparations; "Lord, open the door. Lord, open his/her heart. And Lord, open my mouth."
Okay, "Open the door." This is simply a natural opportunity to talk about your Jesus-relationship. The God who opened up the Red Sea for His children can surely engineer a natural, unforced opportunity for you to introduce Jesus into the conversation. Your open door will often arise from one of two sources: a common experience or something your lost friend is going through or talking about. God may open a door through something that happens in the news, or something that's happening in your family or their family, or a hurting time in their life or your life. For those who have eyes to see them, the world is full of opportunities to bring up life's most important relationship.
The second part of the 3-open prayer is asking God to "open their heart" to the Good News about Jesus. God has a lot of ways of answering that prayer; bringing events, or bringing other people and experiences into their lives that can make them surprisingly ready for someone who does what Jesus does for a person.
Finally, you pray, "Lord, open my mouth." See, "Lord, when You open the door, help me see the opportunity you're giving and help me open my mouth to talk about Jesus in the appropriate way." He will give you the words. He will give you the starting point. He will give you the tone. In fact, in Ephesians 6:19, Paul asked his friends to pray this, that "whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me." Great prayer, huh? You know, God's been doing that for His children for 2,000 years. He'll do it for you.
If you want to get into a lost person's life, and I pray you do because eternity's at stake here, try the ramp that's marked "The 3-Open Prayer": "Lord, open the door. Lord, open their heart. Lord, open my mouth." You don't have to pray, "Lord, if it is your will." It is. It's a prayer that God loves to answer! Just wait and see.