Max Lucado Daily: By Grace Through Faith
The supreme force in salvation is God's grace. Not our works. Not our talents. Not our feelings. Not our strength. Faith is not born at the negotiating table where we barter our gifts in exchange for God's goodness. Faith is not an award given to the most learned. It's not a prize given to the most disciplined.
Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast."
We, like Paul, are aware of two things. We are great sinners and we need a great Savior. Salvation is God's sudden, calming presence during the stormy seas of our lives. Death is disarmed. Failures are forgiven. Life has real purpose. And God is not only within sight-He is within reach!
From In the Eye of the Storm
Psalm 51
Generous in love—God, give grace!
Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I’ve been;
my sins are staring me down.
4-6 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don’t look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.
16-17 Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.
18-19 Make Zion the place you delight in,
repair Jerusalem’s broken-down walls.
Then you’ll get real worship from us,
acts of worship small and large,
Including all the bulls
they can heave onto your altar!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 21, 2022
Today's Scripture
Matthew 7:24–27
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
26–27 “But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.”
Insight
Though the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) is often considered the starting point of Jesus’ public ministry, it actually began in Matthew 4, where He began preaching the kingdom (v. 17), gathering disciples (vv. 18–22), and performing miracles (vv. 23–25). When Matthew 5:1 says that Jesus was followed by crowds, those crowds were the result of the work He’d started in Matthew 4. The Sermon on the Mount launches the basic structure around which Matthew will tell the story of Jesus. It’s the first of five major addresses Matthew records and which form the backbone of his gospel. Some scholars speculate that Matthew presented his gospel based on five messages because his primary audience was Jewish, and they already revered the five books of Moses and the book of Psalms, which is divided into five books. As such, they were accustomed to dealing with content in groups of five.
By: Bill Crowder
Two Houses
Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Matthew 7:24
To test the stability of two houses, engineers simulated a Category 3 hurricane by using powerful fans that produced wind gusts of one hundred miles per hour for ten minutes. The first house was built according to a non-hurricane building code, and the other was put together with a reinforced roof and floors. The first house shook and eventually collapsed, but the second house survived with only a few cosmetic damages. One of the engineers summarized the study by asking, "Which house would you rather be living in?"
Concluding His teaching on values of kingdom living, Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). The fierce winds blew, but the house survived. In contrast, the person who hears and yet doesn’t obey, “is like a foolish man who built his house on sand” (v. 26). The fierce winds blew, and the house collapsed under the intensity of the storm. Jesus presented His audience with two options: build your lives on the solid foundation of obedience to Him or on the unstable sand of your own ways.
We too have to make a choice. Will we build our lives on Jesus and obedience to His words or disobedience to His instruction? By the Holy Spirit’s help, we can choose to build our lives on Christ.
Reflect & Pray
How have you experienced what it means to have Jesus as the foundation of your life? In what areas is He inviting you into greater obedience?
Jesus, help me to abide in You so that when the storms rise and the winds blow, I'll remain true to You—established forever by Your grace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 21, 2022
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit… —Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. “Blessed are the poor in spirit….” This literally means, “Blessed are the paupers.” Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person’s strength of will or the beauty of his character— things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, “Make a decision for Jesus Christ,” places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, “Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom.” I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness— I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable Being who says, “Oh well, sin doesn’t matter much”? Disciples Indeed, 389 L
Bible in a Year: Psalms 107-109; 1 Corinthians 4