Max Lucado Daily:PRAYERS OFFERED IN FAITH - June 16, 2021
I recently met a ten-year-old boy by the name of Joshua. His mother explained that Joshua’s father was no longer a part of the boy’s life. I squatted down eye level with Joshua and I asked, “Do you know the story of your namesake?” He nodded. “You will do what he did,” I admonished. “You will bring down Jericho’s walls and pray prayers of great faith.” He wasn’t quite sure how to respond. But his mom? She was wiping away tears.
Strugglers don’t need our opinions. They don’t need our philosophies on suffering. They need someone to admonish them with truth. Spread words of hope, pray prayers of faith. The Bible says that “Prayers offered in faith will restore them from sickness and bring them to health.” (James 5:15 VOICE). This is how happiness happens.
Job 18
Bildad’s Second Attack
Plunged from Light into Darknes
Bildad from Shuhah chimed in:
“How monotonous these word games are getting!
Get serious! We need to get down to business.
Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals?
You look down on us as if we don’t know anything.
Why are you working yourself up like this?
Do you want the world redesigned to suit you?
Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?
5-21 “Here’s the rule: The light of the wicked is put out.
Their flame dies down and is extinguished.
Their house goes dark—
every lamp in the place goes out.
Their strong strides weaken, falter;
they stumble into their own traps.
They get all tangled up
in their own red tape,
Their feet are grabbed and caught,
their necks in a noose.
They trip on ropes they’ve hidden,
and fall into pits they’ve dug themselves.
Terrors come at them from all sides.
They run dazed and confused.
The hungry grave is ready
to gobble them up for supper,
To lay them out for a gourmet meal,
a treat for ravenous Death.
They are snatched from their home sweet home
and marched straight to the death house.
Their lives go up in smoke;
acid rain soaks their ruins.
Their roots rot
and their branches wither.
They’ll never again be remembered—
nameless in unmarked graves.
They are plunged from light into darkness,
banished from the world.
And they leave empty-handed—not one single child—
nothing to show for their life on this earth.
Westerners are aghast at their fate,
easterners are horrified:
‘Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people.
This is how the God-ignorant end up!’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Read: John 8:27–32
They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up[a] the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him.
Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus’ Opponents Are
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Footnotes
John 8:28 The Greek for lifted up also means exalted.
INSIGHT
In John 8:25, the Jews asked a question that resonates throughout the gospel of John: “Who are you?” John’s gospel was written to answer this very question (20:31). The dispute which started in John 7:25–27 over Jesus’ identity and deity (is Jesus the Messiah?) continues and intensifies in John 8:12–59. Against the backdrop of the Israelites’ forty years of desert wandering during which God sent manna to feed them (Exodus 16; John 6:31) and used the pillar of fire by night to give them light (Exodus 13:21–22), Jesus proclaimed that He’s “the bread of life” (John 6:35, 51, 57) and “the light of the world” sent by the Father (8:12, 16, 18). However, the people didn’t understand what Jesus was saying (8:27; see 6:26). Jesus then told them that only the crucifixion—the Son of Man lifted up on the cross—would prove that He indeed is the Messiah (8:28, see Acts 2:36).
By Dave Branon
The Jesus Chair
If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. John 8:31
When my friend Marge met Tami at a Bible study meeting, she noticed that they seemed to have little in common. But Marge befriended her, and she learned a valuable lesson from her new friend.
Tami had never been to a Bible study, and she was having a hard time understanding something the other women in the study talked about: that God communicated with them—something she’d never experienced.
She so desired to hear from God that she took action. Later, she told Marge. “I set aside an old wooden chair, and every time I study my Bible, I ask Jesus to come sit in it.” Then Tami explained that whenever a verse stood out to her, she would write out the verse in chalk on the chair. It’s become her special “Jesus chair,” and she’s filled it up with God’s messages to her directly from the Bible.
Marge says, “[The Jesus Chair] has changed [Tami’s] life. She’s growing spiritually because Scripture is becoming personal.”
While speaking to Jewish believers, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Let’s hold to His teaching, whether it means writing His words on a chair, memorizing them, or seeking to put them into action. The truth and wisdom of Christ’s messages help us grow in Him and set us free.
What can you do in a practical way to more regularly take in the wisdom found in the Bible? How does the Holy Spirit help you understand Scripture?
Help me, God, to connect with You more and more through the wisdom You’ve given me in the Bible. And then help me apply what I learn to help me grow more and more like Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
“Will You Lay Down Your Life?”
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends….I have called you friends… —John 15:13, 15
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for Your sake,” and he meant it (John 13:37). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing— our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, “Will you lay down your life for My sake?” (John 13:38). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways. There was only one bright-shining moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was there that He emptied Himself of His glory for the second time, and then came down into the demon-possessed valley (seeMark 9:1-29). For thirty-three years Jesus laid down His life to do the will of His Father. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16). Yet it is contrary to our human nature to do so.
If I am a friend of Jesus, I must deliberately and carefully lay down my life for Him. It is a difficult thing to do, and thank God that it is. Salvation is easy for us, because it cost God so much. But the exhibiting of salvation in my life is difficult. God saves a person, fills him with the Holy Spirit, and then says, in effect, “Now you work it out in your life, and be faithful to Me, even though the nature of everything around you is to cause you to be unfaithful.” And Jesus says to us, “…I have called you friends….” Remain faithful to your Friend, and remember that His honor is at stake in your bodily life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
Bible in a Year: Nehemiah 4-6; Acts 2:22-47
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Good Morning, Soldier - #8983
When I was a little guy in Sunday School, we used to sing a little song that says, "I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery." (Okay, it's a Sunday School song...come on, give me a break.) "I may never fly o'er the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army." And you had to sing it like that. "I'm in the Lord's army!"
Actually, that song turned out to be somewhat prophetic in my life, because God called me into the ministry, and the government classified me as 4D in terms of draft status in college. That didn't mean I flunked; it just meant I wasn't drafted because of a ministerial deferment. Now, you may or may not have marched in the infantry, ridden in the cavalry, shot the artillery, or flown over the enemy, but you are military.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Good Morning, Soldier."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Timothy 2:1. And it says this: "You, then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." Okay, our call to strength. Verse 3 gives us a call to endurance, "Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Jesus Christ." And verse 4 is a call to combat. Listen to this, "No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. He wants to please his commanding officer."
Now, God has no deferments. If you know Christ, you are in His army. It helps you remember why you're here. If you can imagine that you're waking up each day and Jesus is standing right there at the door of the bathroom, or right by your bed, and He's saying, "Good morning, soldier!" If you understand that a soldier is what you really are, it will simplify life's choices in three very clear-cut areas.
First of all, you know what your mission is. General McArthur said that a soldier has a special calling, and that is "he exists to win his nation's wars." Well, you and I are called to win our Savior's wars. That's what your major mission is for today, to fight for lives that Jesus is fighting for, to stand against sin and compromise that He stands against, to guard your purity, to attack those sinful strongholds in your life. Soldiers in war time have many different tasks, from cooking, to repairing, to supplying, to fighting. But each soldier knows that his task is part of winning a war. You getting up every morning to win your Savior's wars? Well, you should. You know what your mission is.
Secondly, if you're a soldier, you don't have to be trapped by trivia. That's what this verse says. You don't get tangled up in the little affairs of life. A soldier doesn't have to worry about what he's going to wear. That's taken care of. Where he's going to live, what his schedule will be. That's taken care of. His or her needs are met. He or she concentrates on the battle. You let your commander know your needs; your commander, Jesus, will meet them and you fight His battles.
Thirdly, you know who you report to. This says he wants to please his commanding officer. You don't have many people to please, you've got one. "How am I doing, Lord?" See, that's the only approval you need. So, would you wear His uniform proudly? These are exciting days. The battle lines are forming for what could be some of the final spiritual battles on this planet, and you've been commissioned to help win your Savior's wars before He returns.
You may not wake up to Reveille, but your captain is saying, "Good morning, soldier."
From my daily reading of the bible, Our Daily Bread Devotionals, My Utmost for His Highest and Ron Hutchcraft "A Word with You" and occasionally others.