Max Lucado Daily: ADOPTED BY GOD - September 23, 2022
“You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, ‘Papa! Father!'” (Galatians 4:6-7 MSG).
The natural attitude of people toward God is not like this. We do not really trust him, love him, or pursue him. But upon conversion, a supernatural change occurs. Our affection toward God begins to warm, and we turn to him. The Spirit convinces your spirit of this truth: your destiny is in the hands of a loving Father. He is a good father, who has recorded your name in the Book of Life with the blood of the Lamb. And the Spirit of God is urging you to listen as he affirms in your spirit that you are a child of God. You have been adopted into the family.
“You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, ‘Papa! Father!'” (Galatians 4:6-7 MSG).
The natural attitude of people toward God is not like this. We do not really trust him, love him, or pursue him. But upon conversion, a supernatural change occurs. Our affection toward God begins to warm, and we turn to him. The Spirit convinces your spirit of this truth: your destiny is in the hands of a loving Father. He is a good father, who has recorded your name in the Book of Life with the blood of the Lamb. And the Spirit of God is urging you to listen as he affirms in your spirit that you are a child of God. You have been adopted into the family.
Psalm 9
I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart,
I’m writing the book on your wonders.
I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy;
I’m singing your song, High God.
3-4 The day my enemies turned tail and ran,
they stumbled on you and fell on their faces.
You took over and set everything right;
when I needed you, you were there, taking charge.
5-6 You blow the whistle on godless nations;
you throw dirty players out of the game,
wipe their names right off the roster.
Enemies disappear from the sidelines,
their reputation trashed,
their names erased from the halls of fame.
7-8 God holds the high center,
he sees and sets the world’s mess right.
He decides what is right for us earthlings,
gives people their just deserts.
9-10 God’s a safe-house for the battered,
a sanctuary during bad times.
The moment you arrive, you relax;
you’re never sorry you knocked.
11-12 Sing your songs to Zion-dwelling God,
tell his stories to everyone you meet:
How he tracks down killers
yet keeps his eye on us,
registers every whimper and moan.
13-14 Be kind to me, God;
I’ve been kicked around long enough.
Once you’ve pulled me back
from the gates of death,
I’ll write the book on Hallelujahs;
on the corner of Main and First
I’ll hold a street meeting;
I’ll be the song leader; we’ll fill the air
with salvation songs.
15-16 They’re trapped, those godless countries,
in the very snares they set,
Their feet all tangled
in the net they spread.
They have no excuse;
the way God works is well-known.
The shrewd machinery made by the wicked
has maimed their own hands.
17-20 The wicked bought a one-way
ticket to hell.
No longer will the poor be nameless—
no more humiliation for the humble.
Up, God! Aren’t you fed up with their empty strutting?
Expose these grand pretensions!
Shake them up, God!
Show them how silly they look.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 23, 2022
Today's Scripture
Matthew 6:9–13
With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:
Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Insight
In Matthew’s gospel, the Lord’s Prayer is a key part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ teaching on prayer particularly challenged the religiosity of the day because He indicted both the hypocritical religious leaders who used their worship of God as a means of drawing attention to themselves (6:5) and the pagans who used their prayers as a means of binding their gods with “babbling” incantations or heaped up words (v. 7).
Jesus offered instead an alternative that’s both intimate and submissive. The Lord’s Prayer is a quiet and private conversation between the one praying and God Himself. It doesn’t seek to toss a bridle around the Creator of the universe but positions the one praying in trusting submission to the compassionate Father. Prayer in Jesus’ teaching is an expression of trust, devoid of pride and pretense.
By: Jed Ostoich
The Story Isn’t Over
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10
When British drama Line of Duty concluded, record numbers watched to see how its fight against organized crime would end. But many viewers were left disappointed when the finale implied that evil would ultimately win. “I wanted the bad guys brought to justice,” one fan said. “We needed that moral ending.”
Sociologist Peter Berger once noted that we hunger for hope and justice—hope that evil will one day be overcome and that those who caused it will be made to face their crimes. A world where the bad guys win goes against how we know the world should work. Without probably realizing it, those disappointed fans were expressing humanity’s deep longing for the world to be made right again.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is realistic about evil. It exists not only between us, requiring forgiveness (Matthew 6:12), but on a grand scale, requiring deliverance (v. 13). This realism, however, is matched with hope. There’s a place where evil doesn’t exist—heaven—and that heavenly kingdom is coming to earth (v. 10). One day God’s justice will be complete, His “moral ending” will come, and evil will be banished for good (Revelation 21:4).
So when the real-life bad guys win and disappointment sets in, let’s remember this: until God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven,” there is always hope—because the story isn’t over.
By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
Why do you think we hunger for hope and justice? How can praying the Lord’s Prayer help you face evil and disappointment?
Heavenly Father, may Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!
For further study, read Living Justly, Loving Mercy.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 23, 2022
The Missionary’s Goal
He…said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem…" —Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him— “…till we all come…to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…” (Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord’s life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go “up to Jerusalem.”
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our “Jerusalem.” There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going “up to [our] Jerusalem.”
“…there they crucified Him…” (Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord’s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, “I too go ‘up to Jerusalem.’ ”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” My Utmost for His Highest, April 23, 773 L
Bible in a Year: Song of Solomon 1-3; Galatians 2
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 23, 2022
THE DANGER OF WAITING - #9315
Okay, I'm traveling. I get off the road because it's lunch time. I have a choice. My vehicle is empty, and I'm empty. Which one shall I fill up first? Well, there's a gas station on one side of the road; a restaurant on the other. Guess which one I fill up first? Yep, me. So, I went in, ordered my food. Looking out the window, I noticed that the attendant over there was changing the sign out in front. Does this sound familiar? He's posting a new gasoline price, and it's several cents higher per gallon than the price it had been a few minutes earlier. Oh, you can believe that can't you?. That was a costly choice.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Danger of Waiting."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God, James 1:15, and there's a sobering equation here. Listen to the sequence of events, "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death." This verse describes the escalation in the cost of sin. First it's a desire, you're just thinking about it. Then you begin to do it. Then you do it some more, and sin ultimately will kill everything that really matters, because when it is full grown it will give birth to death.
When I waited to fill up with gas and I waited to take care of things, it cost me more. Sin is like that. The longer you wait to deal with that sinful compromise; that dark corner in your life, the more it's going to cost you. And after you're done you say, "Well, man, why did I do that? I shouldn't do that any more; I feel so crummy when I do." Oh, it's not that you haven't thought about cleaning things up, but you're still doing it dishonestly, you're still doing it immorally, you're still doing it selfishly, bitterly. I want to urge you now, deal with it today. Why?
Well, first, because that sin will never be smaller than it is now. Every day you wait, it strengthens its grip on your heart. And it will, inevitably, follow the biblical sequence: desire will become sin, and sin will become death. It will never be easier to change than it is today. Fight it when it's the smallest it will ever be. And that is right now!
Secondly, deal with it now because it's going to be doing more and more damage. There was a prominent preacher whose sexual problems brought great embarrassment to the name of Christ. He had reportedly struggled with pornography since he had been a teenage boy. And the Devil let him get away with it for years and years. The Devil always does this. And then he waits until it will do the maximum damage to the most people, and he yanks your chain and says, "See, you were never getting away with it."
Maybe you feel like you're getting away with it right now, and all the while the Devil is just raising the price on the pump. It will cost you in your reputation, your relationships, in your distance from God, in the slavery that it creates And the worst of all, God's judgment.
The Bible says that "man is destined to die once, and after this the judgment." And when you and I stand before God with an appointment we don't know when it's scheduled, and we can't really postpone or cancel it. When we have that appointment with God, there we will stand to answer for the sin of a lifetime. Unless it has been forgiven and erased. Of course there is only one person who can do that. That would be the only person who died to pay for it. That would be God's Son, Jesus.
It is so good to know that every sin of my life has been erased from God's Book, not because of what I have done, but because of what Jesus did for me by shedding His blood on the cross. And then He walked out of His grave under His own power three days later. He's alive! He waits to walk into your life and be your Savior from your sin today, and to give you the resurrection power He has so you can be free from the sin you've never been able to stop. Why don't you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Go to our website and there you can find how to begin that relationship with Him. The website's ANewStory.com.
The bill's never going to be smaller than today. Victory will never be more within your reach than it is today. The cost is going up! Take care of it before the price goes up any more.