Max Lucado: The Verse and the Voice
The Verse and the Voice - October 7, 2022
The Spirit of God moves within us to lead us, and he does so with two tools: the verse and the voice. “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 NIV). The primary communication tool of the Holy Spirit is the Bible. He speaks to us through Scripture. His will is found in his Word. Scripture has an answer for any issue you face. The Bible is not only inspirational but also extremely practical. Go first to the verse.
Go next to the voice. The voice might be your inner sense, the “knowing” that results from Scripture interacting with the Spirit. The voice might be wise counsel, a dream, or a vision. The Spirit still speaks. Ask him to guide you. Seek his will. And then listen. Wait for a response.
Psalm 20
1-4 God answer you on the day you crash, The name God-of-Jacob put you out of harm’s reach, Send reinforcements from Holy Hill, Dispatch from Zion fresh supplies, Exclaim over your offerings, Celebrate your sacrifices, Give you what your heart desires, Accomplish your plans.
5
When you win, we plan to raise the roof and lead the parade with our banners. May all your wishes come true!
6
That clinches it—help’s coming, an answer’s on the way, everything’s going to work out.
7-8
See those people polishing their chariots, and those others grooming their horses? But we’re making garlands for God our God. The chariots will rust, those horses pull up lame— and we’ll be on our feet, standing tall.
9
Make the king a winner, God; the day we call, give us your answer.
Our Daily Bread Devotional
Matthew 6:25-33
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
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Footnotes
a Matthew 6:27 Or single cubit to your height
In Matthew 6:25–33, Jesus used a principle for logic and interpretation sometimes called qal wahomer, Hebrew for “light and heavy.” Qal wahomer was one of the principles recorded by the revered Jewish teacher Hillel (who lived 110 bc–ad 10). The principle argues that if something is true for something less important (“light”), it’s also true for something more important (“heavy”).
Jesus used this principle to emphasize that if God cares for the birds, how much more must He care for His beloved children (v. 26). And if God “clothes” fields with breathtaking beauty, how much more must God care about clothing His children (v. 30). This principle strengthens Jesus’ emphasis on exchanging worry for trust (vv. 25–34). When we trust God, we can exchange our preoccupation on what’s less important for a devotion to what’s most important: His “kingdom and his righteousness” (v. 33).
Birds of the air
By Patricia Raybon
Do not worry about your life. Matthew 6:25.
The summer sun was rising and my smiling neighbor, seeing me in my front yard, whispered for me to come look. “What?” I whispered back, intrigued. She pointed to a wind chime on her front porch, where a tiny teacup of straw rested atop a metal rung. “A hummingbird’s nest,” she whispered. “See the babies?” The two beaks, tiny as pinpricks, were barely visible as they pointed upward. “They’re waiting for the mother.” We stood there, marveling. I raised my cell phone to snap a picture. “Not too close,” my neighbor said. “Don’t want to scare away the mother.” And with that, we adopted—from afar—a family of hummingbirds.
But not for long. In another week, mother bird and babies were gone—as quietly as they had arrived. But who would care for them?
The Bible gives a glorious but familiar answer. It’s so familiar that we may forget all that it promises: “Do not worry about your life,” said Jesus (Matthew 6:25). A simple but beautiful instruction. “Look at the birds of the air,” He added. “They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (v. 26).
Just as God cares for tiny birds, He cares for us—nurturing us in mind, body, soul, and spirit. It’s a magnificent promise. May we look to Him daily—without worry—and soar.
What’s the difference between worry and planning—or worry and concern? As you look at your life, how is God daily providing?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
The Nature of Reconciliation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him —2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship— it is not wrong doing, but wrong being— it is deliberate and determined independence from God. The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme, self-confident nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch. God made His own Son “to be sin” that He might make the sinner into a saint. It is revealed throughout the Bible that our Lord took on Himself the sin of the world through identification with us, not through sympathy for us. He deliberately took on His own shoulders, and endured in His own body, the complete, cumulative sin of the human race. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. . .” and by so doing He placed salvation for the entire human race solely on the basis of redemption. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God, on the basis of what our Lord has done on the cross.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Prayer - Access to The Decider
It's probably one of the most famous offices in the world - the Oval Office of the President of the United States. Every four years, two people fight it out with the voters to be the one who gets to occupy that room from which a lot of world-changing decisions are made. And with the President comes a supporting cast, of course. There's the Chief of Staff, a Political Director, a National Security Advisor, and so many more. You know. The greatest perk at the White House has little to do with how nice an office you have or even how much money you make. It's all about your proximity to the President's office and, more importantly, what kind of access you have to him there. Some of the President's staff see him barely at all; others see him occasionally. But there are trusted few who are in and out of the Oval Office several times a day. Given the weight of what goes on in that room, those are some of the most privileged and powerful people in this land.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Prayer - Access to The Decider."
Power has to do with who has regular access to the place where things are decided; to the person who makes the decision. If you belong to Jesus Christ, my friend, you have that access, you have that power to enter at any time of the day or night the place where everything on earth is decided - the Throne Room of Almighty God. In fact, Scripture invites us to "approach the throne of grace with confidence" (Hebrews 4:16). It tells us "we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19).
At any given moment in your life, I know you're facing some things that are beyond your ability to figure out, or to fix, or to change. It can be something medical, or financial, or emotional, or marital; a situation or a person you can't change; maybe it's a mountain you can't move, a challenge you can't meet. Where will the outcome be decided? Who will decide it? Will that medical condition decide it, or your boss, or your company, the economy, the people who are against you, some human authority or some human factor? No! For you as a child of God, it will be decided in the Throne Room of the One who rules billions of galaxies and who is your Father! Which means your primary method of getting anything done must be big-time praying!
The Bible is filled with examples of the decisive difference that desperate and dependent prayer makes. In our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 37, King Hezekiah is facing an ultimatum from the Assyrian army. That army has rolled like a juggernaut across the Middle East, crushing every king and kingdom in its path. Their leader demands Hezekiah's surrender with a message like this: "Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?" (Isaiah 36:18). The answer was "no."
According to Isaiah 37:14, here's what King Hezekiah did with that surrender demand. "He went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: 'O Lord Almighty…enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.'" And he went on to plead with God for deliverance. And the angel of the Lord came and slew 185,000 Assyrians that night.
That divine throne room where the outcome of Hezekiah's battle was decided? It's the same place your battle will be decided.
The powerless P's won't get it done: pushing, persuading, personalities, planning, promoting. Life's battles are won by prayer, not on the battlefield itself, but in the Throne Room of the God who governs the galaxies - who is, because of what Jesus did, your spiritual Daddy! And you have access, day or night, to the place where it's all decided and to the person who decides it. Go there often, go there in awe, go there clean, and go there expecting something so big, only God could do it!