Max Lucado Daily: Prayer Opened the Door - November 4, 2021
“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me…I and my attendants will fast as you do” (Esther 4: 16). Queen Esther faced an immovable wall and the possibility of death for making the wrong move. Rather than rush into the throne room of King Xerxes, she humbled herself and stepped into the throne room of God. She knew that God’s intervention was the only hope.
It wasn’t Esther’s glamour that opened the throne room door. It was her prayers. She came before the king in beauty only after she lingered before the King of kings in humility. Aren’t we called to do the same? Friend, don’t think for a moment that you have what it takes to weather this winter. Yet don’t think for a second that God won’t give you what you need.
Exodus 34
God spoke to Moses: “Cut out two tablets of stone just like the originals and engrave on them the words that were on the original tablets you smashed. Be ready in the morning to climb Mount Sinai and get set to meet me on top of the mountain. Not a soul is to go with you; the whole mountain must be clear of people, even animals—not even sheep or oxen can be grazing in front of the mountain.”
4-7 So Moses cut two tablets of stone just like the originals. He got up early in the morning and climbed Mount Sinai as God had commanded him, carrying the two tablets of stone. God descended in the cloud and took up his position there beside him and called out the name, God. God passed in front of him and called out, “God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Still, he doesn’t ignore sin. He holds sons and grandsons responsible for a father’s sins to the third and even fourth generation.”
8-9 At once, Moses fell to the ground and worshiped, saying, “Please, O Master, if you see anything good in me, please Master, travel with us, hard-headed as these people are. Forgive our iniquity and sin. Own us, possess us.”
10-12 And God said, “As of right now, I’m making a covenant with you: In full sight of your people I will work wonders that have never been created in all the Earth, in any nation. Then all the people with whom you’re living will see how tremendous God’s work is, the work I’ll do for you. Take careful note of all I command you today. I’m clearing your way by driving out Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Stay vigilant. Don’t let down your guard lest you make covenant with the people who live in the land that you are entering and they trip you up.
13-16 “Tear down their altars, smash their phallic pillars, chop down their fertility poles. Don’t worship any other god. God—his name is The-Jealous-One—is a jealous God. Be careful that you don’t make a covenant with the people who live in the land and take up with their sex-and-religion life, join them in meals at their altars, marry your sons to their women, women who take up with any convenient god or goddess and will get your sons to do the same thing.
17 “Don’t make molten gods for yourselves.
18 “Keep the Feast of Unraised Bread. Eat only unraised bread for seven days in the month of Abib—it was in the month of Abib that you came out of Egypt.
19 “Every firstborn from the womb is mine, all the males of your herds, your firstborn oxen and sheep.
20 “Redeem your firstborn donkey with a lamb. If you don’t redeem it you must break its neck.
“Redeem each of your firstborn sons.
“No one is to show up in my presence empty-handed.
21 “Work six days and rest the seventh. Stop working even during plowing and harvesting.
22 “Keep the Feast of Weeks with the first cutting of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
23-24 “All your men are to appear before the Master, the God of Israel, three times a year. You won’t have to worry about your land when you appear before your God three times each year, for I will drive out the nations before you and give you plenty of land. Nobody’s going to be hanging around plotting ways to get it from you.
25 “Don’t mix the blood of my sacrifices with anything fermented.
“Don’t leave leftovers from the Passover Feast until morning.
26 “Bring the finest of the firstfruits of your produce to the house of your God.
“Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
27 God said to Moses: “Now write down these words, for by these words I’ve made a covenant with you and Israel.”
28 Moses was there with God forty days and forty nights. He didn’t eat any food; he didn’t drink any water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.
29-30 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets of The Testimony, he didn’t know that the skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with God. Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, saw his radiant face, and held back, afraid to get close to him.
31-32 Moses called out to them. Aaron and the leaders in the community came back and Moses talked with them. Later all the Israelites came up to him and he passed on the commands, everything that God had told him on Mount Sinai.
33-35 When Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face, but when he went into the presence of God to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. When he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they would see Moses’ face, its skin glowing, and then he would again put the veil on his face until he went back in to speak with God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 04, 2021
Today's Scripture
Proverbs 11:23–26
(NIV)
The desire of the righteous ends only in good,
but the hope of the wicked only in wrath.
24 One person gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
25 A generousz person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.a
26 People curse the one who hoards grain,
but they pray God’s blessing on the one who is willing to sell.
Insight
Proverbs 11:25 declares that “a generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” The apostle Paul echoes this thought to the believers in Jesus in Corinth. He writes to encourage them to fulfill their promise to provide a generous gift for the needy church in Jerusalem: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (2 Corinthians 9:6). He goes on to say, “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (vv. 10–11). Our generosity points back to God, who provides all good things (James 1:17). By: Alyson Kieda
Rainy Days
A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Proverbs 11:25
When small businesses in Tennessee were abruptly shuttered in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, shop owners worried about how to care for their employees, how to pay their rent, and how to simply survive the crisis. In response to their concerns, the pastor of a church near Nashville started an initiative to supply cash to struggling business owners.
“We don’t feel like we can sit on a rainy-day fund when somebody else is going through a rainy day,” the pastor explained, as he encouraged other churches in the area to join the effort.
A rainy-day fund is money that’s put aside in case normal income is decreased for a time while regular operations need to continue. While it’s natural for us to look out for ourselves first, Scripture encourages us to always look beyond our own needs, to find ways to serve others, and to practice generosity. Proverbs 11 reminds us, “One person gives freely, yet gains even more,” “a generous person will prosper,” and “whoever refreshes others will be refreshed” (vv. 24–25).
Is the sun shining extra bright in your life today? Look around to see if there’s torrential rain in someone else’s world. The blessings God has graciously given you are multiplied when you freely share them with others. Being generous and open-handed is a wonderful way to give hope to others and to remind hurting people that God loves them. By: Cindy Hess Kasper
Reflect & Pray
When has someone been open-handed with their time or resources with you? How could you do the same for someone in need today?
Gracious God, help me to be tenderhearted toward the needs of others and show me how I can share Your love and generosity with them.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 04, 2021
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. —James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood— work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 32-33; Hebrews 1
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 04, 2021
Flying Into the Fog - #9084
It was a sad ending to the TV movie and the man the movie was about. The last scene showed his plane disappearing into the fog with the famous pilot struggling to get his bearings. That pilot was the man that the movie called the "American Prince," John F. Kennedy, Jr. And for most Americans it struck a poignant chord when we heard that the one we once knew as "Little John-John" had died with his wife and sister-in-law in a tragic plane crash; a crash made even more tragic by the fact that it apparently didn't have to happen. Investigators indicated that JFK, Jr. had wanted to reach his destination so much that he seemed to ignore the fact that he was flying into conditions he wasn't prepared for. If only he had waited until conditions were right.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Flying Into the Fog."
Tragedy often occurs when pilots insist on flying ahead when they really should be waiting, or when any of us insist on forcing our way to get to our destination when conditions just aren't right. Many of us can look back on crashes that never had to happen, and we say, "If only I had waited. If only I hadn't been in such a hurry."
In Isaiah 50:10-11, God spells out two different ways we can approach our future - one which takes us to His best, one which ends in a crash. In our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light" (that's all those times we aren't sure which way to go). "Let him...trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." That's one way to approach getting where you need to go. That's the right way. But it goes on to say, "But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment."
Bottom line: His way, His time works. My bright idea, my time doesn't work, and it happens for one major reason. We just can't wait any longer for God to do it. So we take off into the fog, sure we can get there on our own. Maybe you're there right now. And you are, or you soon will be, realizing how disoriented you are, how unsure, how very lost. You're missing the blessed confidence of knowing that you are flying with your way-making, Red Sea-parting God. You're on your own in the fog instead.
Perhaps more than anything else, it's impatience that costs us God's best. And maybe right now you're in danger of running ahead of God and right out of the will of God because you want this thing. You can't wait for this thing. Maybe it's a relationship you're determined you're going to make work, or a business venture, a ministry venture you just know must go on, getting married no matter what, or getting something or someone you want no matter what. God's trying to say, "Stop!" and you're trying to go no matter what. You'll make your own way. You're going to make this happen.
But today, Heaven's Flight Controller is calling you gently, and warning you not to go flying off into the fog. There will come a time when conditions are right, when you will have God's flight plan, and when you'll have a beautiful flight to the destination you were made for. But it's not time yet. And if you go now, there's going to be a crash.
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.