Max Lucado Daily: UNTIL WE GET HOME
Beware of those who urge you to find happiness here in this life. You won’t find it! Guard against the false physicians who promise that joy is only a diet away, a marriage away, or a job away. The prophet denounced people like this, “They tried to heal my people’s serious injuries as if they were small wounds. They said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ But really, it is not all right!” (Jeremiah 6:14).
We won’t be all right until we get home. The Bible says, “No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). What a breathtaking verse! Anything you imagine is inadequate. Anything anyone imagines is inadequate. No one comes close. No one! All the songs about heaven, all the artists’ portrayals, all the lessons preached, poems written, chapters drafted—when it comes to describing heaven, we are all happy failures. It is beyond us!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Nehemiah 3
1-2 The high priest Eliashib and his fellow priests were up and at it: They went to work on the Sheep Gate; they repaired it and hung its doors, continuing on as far as the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel. The men of Jericho worked alongside them; and next to them, Zaccur son of Imri.
3-5 The Fish Gate was built by the Hassenaah brothers; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, worked; next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel; next to him Zadok son of Baana; and next to him the Tekoites (except for their nobles, who wouldn’t work with their master and refused to get their hands dirty with such work).
6-8 The Jeshanah Gate was rebuilt by Joiada son of Paseah and Meshullam son of Besodeiah; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Melatiah the Gibeonite, Jadon the Meronothite, and the men of Gibeon and Mizpah, which was under the rule of the governor from across the Euphrates, worked alongside them. Uzziel son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths’ guild worked next to him, and next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers. They rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall.
9-10 The next section was worked on by Rephaiah son of Hur, mayor of a half-district of Jerusalem. Next to him Jedaiah son of Harumaph rebuilt the front of his house; Hattush son of Hashabneiah worked next to him.
11-12 Malkijah son of Harim and Hasshub son of Pahath-Moab rebuilt another section that included the Tower of Furnaces. Working next to him was Shallum son of Hallohesh, mayor of the other half-district of Jerusalem, along with his daughters.
13 The Valley Gate was rebuilt by Hanun and villagers of Zanoah; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. They went on to repair 1,500 feet of the wall, as far as the Dung Gate.
14 The Dung Gate itself was rebuilt by Malkijah son of Recab, the mayor of the district of Beth Hakkerem; he repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars.
15 The Fountain Gate was rebuilt by Shallun son of Col-Hozeh, mayor of the Mizpah district; he repaired it, roofed it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. He also rebuilt the wall of the Pool of Siloam at the King’s Garden as far as the steps that go down from the City of David.
16 After him came Nehemiah son of Azbuk, mayor of half the district of Beth Zur. He worked from just in front of the Tomb of David as far as the Pool and the House of Heroes.
17-18 Levites under Rehum son of Bani were next in line. Alongside them, Hashabiah, mayor of half the district of Keilah, represented his district in the rebuilding. Next to him their brothers continued the rebuilding under Binnui son of Henadad, mayor of the other half-district of Keilah.
19-23 The section from in front of the Ascent to the Armory as far as the Angle was rebuilt by Ezer son of Jeshua, the mayor of Mizpah. From the Angle to the door of the house of Eliashib the high priest was done by Baruch son of Zabbai. Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, took it from the door of Eliashib’s house to the end of Eliashib’s house. Priests from the neighborhood went on from there. Benjamin and Hasshub worked on the wall in front of their house, and Azariah son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, did the work alongside his house.
24-27 The section from the house of Azariah to the Angle at the Corner was rebuilt by Binnui son of Henadad. Palal son of Uzai worked opposite the Angle and the tower that projects from the Upper Palace of the king near the Court of the Guard. Next to him Pedaiah son of Parosh and The Temple support staff who lived on the hill of Ophel worked up to the point opposite the Water Gate eastward and the projecting tower. The men of Tekoa did the section from the great projecting tower as far as the wall of Ophel.
28-30 Above the Horse Gate the priests worked, each priest repairing the wall in front of his own house. After them Zadok son of Immer rebuilt in front of his house and after him Shemaiah son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the East Gate; then Hananiah son of Shelemiah and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph; then Meshullam son of Berekiah rebuilt the wall in front of his storage shed.
31-32 Malkijah the goldsmith repaired the wall as far as the house of The Temple support staff and merchants, up to the Inspection Gate, and the Upper Room at the Corner. The goldsmiths and the merchants made the repairs between the Upper Room at the Corner and the Sheep Gate.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 28, 2017
Read: Psalm 41:1–3
A David Psalm
1-3 Dignify those who are down on their luck;
you’ll feel good—that’s what God does.
God looks after us all,
makes us robust with life—
Lucky to be in the land,
we’re free from enemy worries.
Whenever we’re sick and in bed,
God becomes our nurse,
nurses us back to health.
INSIGHT:
This psalm is a touching reminder of God’s heart for the suffering and an invitation for His people to share in His compassion. Many have speculated about the details of the psalm. Some suggest the scheming and painful betrayal detailed in verses 5–9 fit with the period of David’s life when his son Absalom attempted to steal the throne, a rebellion supported by David’s counselor Ahithophel. In the New Testament, Jesus applied the psalm to Himself in reference to Judas’s betrayal (see John 13:18).
The psalm’s opening verses introduce the foundation for compassion—God’s own heart, which is so focused on the poor and suffering that His blessing rests on those who care about them (vv. 1–3). The word weak or poor (v. 1) includes connotations of poverty, weakness, and helplessness. When we “consider” (v. 1 nkjv) the poor, we follow the example of Jesus—who had such compassion that He Himself became poor for us, leaving heaven to live among us as a human (2 Cor. 8:9).
How does this psalm offer hope to those feeling betrayed and alone? How can we share Jesus’s compassion for all who are suffering? Monica Brands
Paying Attention
By David H. Roper
Blessed is he who considers the poor. Psalm 41:1 nkjv
John Newton wrote, “If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something. I should be glad to do greater things; but I will not neglect this.”
These days, it’s not hard to find someone in need of comfort: A care-worn cashier in a grocery store working a second job to make ends meet; a refugee longing for home; a single mother whose flood of worries has washed away her hope; a lonely old man who fears he has outlived his usefulness.
Father, as we go through our day, show us the people who need our attention.
But what are we to do? “Blessed is he who considers the poor,” wrote David (Ps. 41:1 nkjv). Even if we can’t alleviate the poverty of those we meet along the way we can consider them—a verb that means “to pay attention.”
We can let people know we care. We can treat them with courtesy and respect, though they may be testy or tiresome. We can listen with interest to their stories. And we can pray for them or with them—the most helpful and healing act of all.
Remember the old paradox Jesus gave us when He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Paying attention pays off, for we're happiest when we give ourselves away. Consider the poor.
Father, as we go through our day, show us the everyday folks who need our attention. Grant us the love and the patience to truly consider them, as You have so patiently loved us.
Only a life given away for love’s sake is worth living. Frederick Buechner
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 28, 2017
The Purpose of Prayer
…one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray…" —Luke 11:1
Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
“Ask, and you will receive…” (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “…unless you…become as little children…” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems— the very things that have brought you to your wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.
To say that “prayer changes things” is not as close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Much of the misery in our Christian life comes not because the devil tackles us, but because we have never understood the simple laws of our make-up. We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the body says “Sit,” and He says “Go,” go! When the body says “Eat,” and He says “Fast,” fast! When the body says “Yawn,” and He says “Pray,” pray! Biblical Ethics, 107 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 28, 2017
The Danger Zone Alarm - #7991
An alarm may be annoying but, face it, most alarms are your friend. The alarm clock in the morning-without which you'd lose your job. The smoke detector. The fire alarm. Most of us don't carry an alarm with us, but for some people, it's a very positive idea. I remember my wife was in a nursing home on an errand of mercy when suddenly this loud alarm went off. Immediately, a nurse came running to a door where she intercepted one of their elderly residents who was headed for that door. The manager explained that some of their residents are afflicted with serious memory loss or disorientation, so much so, that they have left the building and wandered off, not knowing where they were! So the woman who triggered the alarm has been fitted with a special bracelet-one that triggers an alarm whenever she is on the edge of a possible danger zone. Apparently, she does remember what that alarm is for. When it went off, she instinctively stopped where she was because that alarm, I guess she knows, could literally save her life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Danger Zone Alarm".
When you're moving into danger that you don't realize, it's good to have an alarm that alerts you. And it's good to pay attention to that alarm. Your Lord has built that kind of an alarm into you in the person of His Holy Spirit who lives inside of you as a follower of Christ. Jesus said the Spirit would "convict the world of guilt in regard to sin." (John 16:8) One important ministry the Holy Spirit has to you is warning you when you're wandering into the danger zone spiritually. A danger you may not know is there, but a danger that could do you a lot of harm.
That's why God's warning is in our word for today from the Word of God. It's so important. 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Four words: "Quench not the Spirit." After that, it goes on to say, "Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil." When the Holy Spirit is talking to you inside, don't ignore Him. Don't put out the fire He sets inside of you. Don't blow right past His warning because you've crossed the line.
The Holy Spirit is active in your heart, your mind, and your conscience all day long. And he's there representing how God feels about what you're saying, what you're watching, what you're listening to, what you're doing with His temple (your body), what you're thinking about, fantasizing about, the motives behind what you're doing. And when you're starting to wander out of bounds, He puts this check in your spirit-a restraint, or even a twinge of guilt. The alarm goes off-God's quiet inner alarm that says, "You're out of bounds. You can't see it, but you have just entered the danger zone."
See, the Holy Spirit knows exactly where the choices you're making are going to ultimately end up. Like a disoriented older person, where you want to go may look very desirable and perfectly harmless. But God knows this will take you into deadly heavy traffic-and by the time you realize it, you may not be able to get out. No sin remains isolated. The first compromise may be hard, but it seldom stays just one compromise. Right? The next one is always a little easier, until one day you have done what you never thought you'd do, you've become what you never thought you'd become.
It may be that God's alarm has been going off in you recently, warning you not to keep telling or living that lie. Or making you feel shame or guilt or uneasiness over something you watch or listen to or laugh at. Maybe warning you against leaving your family when it looks really tempting to bail out. Or the Spirit-alarm may be trying to move you away from that wrong relationship, that dangerous flirtation, or that growing anger or bitterness.
God's warning is clear-don't quench the Holy Spirit of Almighty God. Listen to God's alarm going off in you. You don't know the trouble this is taking you into. He does. Back away from that door. It takes you where you do not want to end up. You are entering the danger zone.
Monday, August 28, 2017
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Nehemiah 2 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Love Covers a Multitude of Sins
If people love you at 6:00 a.m. one thing is sure. They love you! No makeup. No power tie. No status jewelry. No layers of images. Just unkempt honesty. Just you. "Love," wrote one forgiven soul, "covers over a multitude of sins."
Sounds like God's love. Hebrews 10:14 says, "He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Note that the word is not improving. God doesn't improve; he perfects. He doesn't enhance; he completes. When it comes to our position before God, we are perfect. When he sees each of us, he sees one who has been made perfect through the One who is perfect-Jesus Christ. He sees perfection. Not perfection earned by us, mind you, but perfection paid by him.
Scripture says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21 NCV).
From In the Eye of the Storm
Nehemiah 2
I was cupbearer to the king.
1-2 It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before, so he asked me, “Why the long face? You’re not sick are you? Or are you depressed?”
2-3 That made me all the more agitated. I said, “Long live the king! And why shouldn’t I be depressed when the city, the city where all my family is buried, is in ruins and the city gates have been reduced to cinders?”
4-5 The king then asked me, “So what do you want?”
Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven, I said, “If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it.”
6 The king, with the queen sitting alongside him, said, “How long will your work take and when would you expect to return?”
I gave him a time, and the king gave his approval to send me.
7-8 Then I said, “If it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah; and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, to supply me with timber for the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I’ll be living.”
8-9 The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me. When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king’s letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort.
10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very upset, angry that anyone would come to look after the interests of the People of Israel.
“Come—Let’s Build the Wall of Jerusalem”
11-12 And so I arrived in Jerusalem. After I had been there three days, I got up in the middle of the night, I and a few men who were with me. I hadn’t told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with us was the one I was riding.
13-16 Under cover of night I went past the Valley Gate toward the Dragon’s Fountain to the Dung Gate looking over the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken through and whose gates had been burned up. I then crossed to the Fountain Gate and headed for the King’s Pool but there wasn’t enough room for the donkey I was riding to get through. So I went up the valley in the dark continuing my inspection of the wall. I came back in through the Valley Gate. The local officials had no idea where I’d gone or what I was doing—I hadn’t breathed a word to the Jews, priests, nobles, local officials, or anyone else who would be working on the job.
17-18 Then I gave them my report: “Face it: we’re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come—let’s build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer.” I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up.
They said, “We’re with you. Let’s get started.” They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work.
19 When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they laughed at us, mocking, “Ha! What do you think you’re doing? Do you think you can cross the king?”
20 I shot back, “The God-of-Heaven will make sure we succeed. We’re his servants and we’re going to work, rebuilding. You can keep your nose out of it. You get no say in this—Jerusalem’s none of your business!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Read: Isaiah 62:1–12
Look, Your Savior Comes!
1-5 Regarding Zion, I can’t keep my mouth shut,
regarding Jerusalem, I can’t hold my tongue,
Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun
and her salvation flames up like a torch.
Foreign countries will see your righteousness,
and world leaders your glory.
You’ll get a brand-new name
straight from the mouth of God.
You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand,
a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.
No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because God delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
For as a young man marries his virgin bride,
so your builder marries you,
And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride,
so your God is happy with you.
6-7 I’ve posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem.
Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out,
reminding God to remember.
They are to give him no peace until he does what he said,
until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise.
8-9 God has taken a solemn oath,
an oath he means to keep:
“Never again will I open your grain-filled barns
to your enemies to loot and eat.
Never again will foreigners drink the wine
that you worked so hard to produce.
No. The farmers who grow the food will eat the food
and praise God for it.
And those who make the wine will drink the wine
in my holy courtyards.”
10-12 Walk out of the gates. Get going!
Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
Clear the debris,
hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! God has broadcast to all the world:
“Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he’d do,
prepared to complete what he promised.’”
Zion will be called new names: Holy People, God-Redeemed,
Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.
Earnestly Searching
By Kirsten Holmberg
You will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted. Isaiah 62:12
Every Saturday our family lines the edges of the racecourse to cheer on my daughter as she runs with her high school cross-country team. After crossing the finish line, the athletes stream out to rejoin their teammates, coaches, and parents. Crowds engulf the finishers—often more than 300 of them—making it difficult to find one person among so many. We scan the crowd excitedly until we find her, eager to put our arms around the one athlete we came to watch: our much-loved daughter.
After seventy years of captivity in Babylon, God returned the Jews to Jerusalem and Judah. Isaiah describes the delight God has in them, and the work of preparing the highways for their pilgrimage home and the gates to receive them back. God reaffirms His calling of them as His holy people and restores their honor with a new name, “Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted” (Isa. 62:12). He sought them all from the scattered reaches of Babylon to bring them back to Himself.
God seeks His beloved children.
Like the children of Israel, we too are God’s beloved children, earnestly sought after by Him. Though our sin once caused us isolation from Him, Jesus’s sacrifice paves our way back to Him. He searches for each of us intently among all the others, waiting expectantly to fold us into a heartfelt embrace.
Thank You, Lord, for seeking me while I was lost and returning me home to You through Jesus Christ.
God seeks His beloved children.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you… —John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, “…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. So Send I You, 1301 L
If people love you at 6:00 a.m. one thing is sure. They love you! No makeup. No power tie. No status jewelry. No layers of images. Just unkempt honesty. Just you. "Love," wrote one forgiven soul, "covers over a multitude of sins."
Sounds like God's love. Hebrews 10:14 says, "He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Note that the word is not improving. God doesn't improve; he perfects. He doesn't enhance; he completes. When it comes to our position before God, we are perfect. When he sees each of us, he sees one who has been made perfect through the One who is perfect-Jesus Christ. He sees perfection. Not perfection earned by us, mind you, but perfection paid by him.
Scripture says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21 NCV).
From In the Eye of the Storm
Nehemiah 2
I was cupbearer to the king.
1-2 It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before, so he asked me, “Why the long face? You’re not sick are you? Or are you depressed?”
2-3 That made me all the more agitated. I said, “Long live the king! And why shouldn’t I be depressed when the city, the city where all my family is buried, is in ruins and the city gates have been reduced to cinders?”
4-5 The king then asked me, “So what do you want?”
Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven, I said, “If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it.”
6 The king, with the queen sitting alongside him, said, “How long will your work take and when would you expect to return?”
I gave him a time, and the king gave his approval to send me.
7-8 Then I said, “If it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah; and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, to supply me with timber for the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I’ll be living.”
8-9 The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me. When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king’s letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort.
10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very upset, angry that anyone would come to look after the interests of the People of Israel.
“Come—Let’s Build the Wall of Jerusalem”
11-12 And so I arrived in Jerusalem. After I had been there three days, I got up in the middle of the night, I and a few men who were with me. I hadn’t told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with us was the one I was riding.
13-16 Under cover of night I went past the Valley Gate toward the Dragon’s Fountain to the Dung Gate looking over the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken through and whose gates had been burned up. I then crossed to the Fountain Gate and headed for the King’s Pool but there wasn’t enough room for the donkey I was riding to get through. So I went up the valley in the dark continuing my inspection of the wall. I came back in through the Valley Gate. The local officials had no idea where I’d gone or what I was doing—I hadn’t breathed a word to the Jews, priests, nobles, local officials, or anyone else who would be working on the job.
17-18 Then I gave them my report: “Face it: we’re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come—let’s build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer.” I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up.
They said, “We’re with you. Let’s get started.” They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work.
19 When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they laughed at us, mocking, “Ha! What do you think you’re doing? Do you think you can cross the king?”
20 I shot back, “The God-of-Heaven will make sure we succeed. We’re his servants and we’re going to work, rebuilding. You can keep your nose out of it. You get no say in this—Jerusalem’s none of your business!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Read: Isaiah 62:1–12
Look, Your Savior Comes!
1-5 Regarding Zion, I can’t keep my mouth shut,
regarding Jerusalem, I can’t hold my tongue,
Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun
and her salvation flames up like a torch.
Foreign countries will see your righteousness,
and world leaders your glory.
You’ll get a brand-new name
straight from the mouth of God.
You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand,
a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.
No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because God delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
For as a young man marries his virgin bride,
so your builder marries you,
And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride,
so your God is happy with you.
6-7 I’ve posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem.
Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out,
reminding God to remember.
They are to give him no peace until he does what he said,
until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise.
8-9 God has taken a solemn oath,
an oath he means to keep:
“Never again will I open your grain-filled barns
to your enemies to loot and eat.
Never again will foreigners drink the wine
that you worked so hard to produce.
No. The farmers who grow the food will eat the food
and praise God for it.
And those who make the wine will drink the wine
in my holy courtyards.”
10-12 Walk out of the gates. Get going!
Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
Clear the debris,
hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! God has broadcast to all the world:
“Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he’d do,
prepared to complete what he promised.’”
Zion will be called new names: Holy People, God-Redeemed,
Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.
Earnestly Searching
By Kirsten Holmberg
You will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted. Isaiah 62:12
Every Saturday our family lines the edges of the racecourse to cheer on my daughter as she runs with her high school cross-country team. After crossing the finish line, the athletes stream out to rejoin their teammates, coaches, and parents. Crowds engulf the finishers—often more than 300 of them—making it difficult to find one person among so many. We scan the crowd excitedly until we find her, eager to put our arms around the one athlete we came to watch: our much-loved daughter.
After seventy years of captivity in Babylon, God returned the Jews to Jerusalem and Judah. Isaiah describes the delight God has in them, and the work of preparing the highways for their pilgrimage home and the gates to receive them back. God reaffirms His calling of them as His holy people and restores their honor with a new name, “Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted” (Isa. 62:12). He sought them all from the scattered reaches of Babylon to bring them back to Himself.
God seeks His beloved children.
Like the children of Israel, we too are God’s beloved children, earnestly sought after by Him. Though our sin once caused us isolation from Him, Jesus’s sacrifice paves our way back to Him. He searches for each of us intently among all the others, waiting expectantly to fold us into a heartfelt embrace.
Thank You, Lord, for seeking me while I was lost and returning me home to You through Jesus Christ.
God seeks His beloved children.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Living Your Theology
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you… —John 12:35
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.
The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.
Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, “…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. So Send I You, 1301 L
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Nehemiah 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Guard Your Attitude
It's easy to forget who is the servant and who is to be served. The tool of distortion is one of Satan's slyest. When the focus is on yourself, you worry that your co-workers won't appreciate you or your leaders will overwork you. With time, your agenda becomes more important than God's. You're more concerned with presenting self than pleasing Him. You may even find yourself doubting God's judgment.
Remember Martha criticizing her sister Mary, "Lord don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me" (Luke 10:40). What had Mary chosen? She'd chosen to sit at the feet of Christ. God is more pleased with the quiet attention of a sincere servant than the noisy service of a sour one!
Guard your attitude. If you concern yourself with your neighbor's talents, you'll neglect your own. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both!
from He Still Moves Stones
Nehemiah 1
1-2 The memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah.
It was the month of Kislev in the twentieth year. At the time I was in the palace complex at Susa. Hanani, one of my brothers, had just arrived from Judah with some fellow Jews. I asked them about the conditions among the Jews there who had survived the exile, and about Jerusalem.
3 They told me, “The exile survivors who are left there in the province are in bad shape. Conditions are appalling. The wall of Jerusalem is still rubble; the city gates are still cinders.”
4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God-of-Heaven.
5-6 I said, “God, God-of-Heaven, the great and awesome God, loyal to his covenant and faithful to those who love him and obey his commands: Look at me, listen to me. Pay attention to this prayer of your servant that I’m praying day and night in intercession for your servants, the People of Israel, confessing the sins of the People of Israel. And I’m including myself, I and my ancestors, among those who have sinned against you.
7-9 “We’ve treated you like dirt: We haven’t done what you told us, haven’t followed your commands, and haven’t respected the decisions you gave to Moses your servant. All the same, remember the warning you posted to your servant Moses: ‘If you betray me, I’ll scatter you to the four winds, but if you come back to me and do what I tell you, I’ll gather up all these scattered peoples from wherever they ended up and put them back in the place I chose to mark with my Name.’
10-11 “Well, there they are—your servants, your people whom you so powerfully and impressively redeemed. O Master, listen to me, listen to your servant’s prayer—and yes, to all your servants who delight in honoring you—and make me successful today so that I get what I want from the king.”
I was cupbearer to the king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Read: Luke 1:1–4
So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.
INSIGHT:
Luke was a highly educated physician in the Greek academic tradition. As a result, his word choice and grammar are eloquent and descriptive. Today’s reading is an introduction to his narrative of the life of Christ. We can be assured that what Luke writes is not based on hearsay but is deeply rooted in a well-documented eyewitness record of Jesus as the Christ. Luke acknowledges that other trustworthy biographies of Jesus of Nazareth had preceded his account. But he felt compelled to write his own eyewitness narrative. It’s interesting to note that the book is addressed to Theophilus, which in Greek means “lover of God.” Most believe Theophilus was an actual person, but others say this name is a term that could refer to any of us who are lovers of God and yearn to learn more about His dear Son.
How does knowing eyewitnesses wrote the Gospel accounts of Christ encourage you in your spiritual life?
For further study read Beyond Reasonable Doubt at discoveryseries.org/q0411. Dennis Fisher
The Snake and the Tricycle
By Tim Gustafson
I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning. Luke 1:3
For years, I had retold a story from a time in Ghana when my brother and I were toddlers. As I recalled it, he had parked our old iron tricycle on a small cobra. The trike was too heavy for the snake, which remained trapped under the front wheel.
But after my aunt and my mother had both passed away, we discovered a long-lost letter from Mom recounting the incident. In reality, I had parked the tricycle on the snake, and my brother had run to tell Mom. Her eyewitness account, written close to the actual event, revealed the reality.
Jesus came to give us peace with God.
The historian Luke understood the importance of accurate records. He explained how the story of Jesus was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2). “I too decided to write an orderly account for you,” he wrote to Theophilus, “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (vv. 3–4). The result was the gospel of Luke. Then, in his introduction to the book of Acts, Luke said of Jesus, “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive” (Acts 1:3).
Our faith is not based on hearsay or wishful thinking. It is rooted in the well-documented life of Jesus, who came to give us peace with God. His Story stands.
Father, our hope is in Your Son. Thank You for preserving His story for us in the pages of the Bible.
Genuine faith is rooted in reason.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you… —John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “…My peace I give to you…”— a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
It's easy to forget who is the servant and who is to be served. The tool of distortion is one of Satan's slyest. When the focus is on yourself, you worry that your co-workers won't appreciate you or your leaders will overwork you. With time, your agenda becomes more important than God's. You're more concerned with presenting self than pleasing Him. You may even find yourself doubting God's judgment.
Remember Martha criticizing her sister Mary, "Lord don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me" (Luke 10:40). What had Mary chosen? She'd chosen to sit at the feet of Christ. God is more pleased with the quiet attention of a sincere servant than the noisy service of a sour one!
Guard your attitude. If you concern yourself with your neighbor's talents, you'll neglect your own. But if you concern yourself with yours, you could inspire both!
from He Still Moves Stones
Nehemiah 1
1-2 The memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah.
It was the month of Kislev in the twentieth year. At the time I was in the palace complex at Susa. Hanani, one of my brothers, had just arrived from Judah with some fellow Jews. I asked them about the conditions among the Jews there who had survived the exile, and about Jerusalem.
3 They told me, “The exile survivors who are left there in the province are in bad shape. Conditions are appalling. The wall of Jerusalem is still rubble; the city gates are still cinders.”
4 When I heard this, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God-of-Heaven.
5-6 I said, “God, God-of-Heaven, the great and awesome God, loyal to his covenant and faithful to those who love him and obey his commands: Look at me, listen to me. Pay attention to this prayer of your servant that I’m praying day and night in intercession for your servants, the People of Israel, confessing the sins of the People of Israel. And I’m including myself, I and my ancestors, among those who have sinned against you.
7-9 “We’ve treated you like dirt: We haven’t done what you told us, haven’t followed your commands, and haven’t respected the decisions you gave to Moses your servant. All the same, remember the warning you posted to your servant Moses: ‘If you betray me, I’ll scatter you to the four winds, but if you come back to me and do what I tell you, I’ll gather up all these scattered peoples from wherever they ended up and put them back in the place I chose to mark with my Name.’
10-11 “Well, there they are—your servants, your people whom you so powerfully and impressively redeemed. O Master, listen to me, listen to your servant’s prayer—and yes, to all your servants who delight in honoring you—and make me successful today so that I get what I want from the king.”
I was cupbearer to the king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Read: Luke 1:1–4
So many others have tried their hand at putting together a story of the wonderful harvest of Scripture and history that took place among us, using reports handed down by the original eyewitnesses who served this Word with their very lives. Since I have investigated all the reports in close detail, starting from the story’s beginning, I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught.
INSIGHT:
Luke was a highly educated physician in the Greek academic tradition. As a result, his word choice and grammar are eloquent and descriptive. Today’s reading is an introduction to his narrative of the life of Christ. We can be assured that what Luke writes is not based on hearsay but is deeply rooted in a well-documented eyewitness record of Jesus as the Christ. Luke acknowledges that other trustworthy biographies of Jesus of Nazareth had preceded his account. But he felt compelled to write his own eyewitness narrative. It’s interesting to note that the book is addressed to Theophilus, which in Greek means “lover of God.” Most believe Theophilus was an actual person, but others say this name is a term that could refer to any of us who are lovers of God and yearn to learn more about His dear Son.
How does knowing eyewitnesses wrote the Gospel accounts of Christ encourage you in your spiritual life?
For further study read Beyond Reasonable Doubt at discoveryseries.org/q0411. Dennis Fisher
The Snake and the Tricycle
By Tim Gustafson
I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning. Luke 1:3
For years, I had retold a story from a time in Ghana when my brother and I were toddlers. As I recalled it, he had parked our old iron tricycle on a small cobra. The trike was too heavy for the snake, which remained trapped under the front wheel.
But after my aunt and my mother had both passed away, we discovered a long-lost letter from Mom recounting the incident. In reality, I had parked the tricycle on the snake, and my brother had run to tell Mom. Her eyewitness account, written close to the actual event, revealed the reality.
Jesus came to give us peace with God.
The historian Luke understood the importance of accurate records. He explained how the story of Jesus was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2). “I too decided to write an orderly account for you,” he wrote to Theophilus, “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (vv. 3–4). The result was the gospel of Luke. Then, in his introduction to the book of Acts, Luke said of Jesus, “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive” (Acts 1:3).
Our faith is not based on hearsay or wishful thinking. It is rooted in the well-documented life of Jesus, who came to give us peace with God. His Story stands.
Father, our hope is in Your Son. Thank You for preserving His story for us in the pages of the Bible.
Genuine faith is rooted in reason.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Are You Ever Troubled?
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you… —John 14:27
There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “…My peace I give to you…”— a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.
Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.
With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
Friday, August 25, 2017
Revelation 16, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DEEPEN YOUR PRAYER LIFE
Do you want to know how to deepen your prayer life? The Bible instructs in Romans 12:12 to steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer. Though there are many bad habits, there are also many good ones. At the risk of sounding like a preacher—which is what I am—may I make a suggestion? Don’t prepare to pray. Just pray. Don’t read about prayer. Just pray. Don’t attend a lecture on prayer or engage in discussion about prayer.
Just pray. Posture, tone, and place are personal matters. Select the form that works for you but don’t think about it too much. Don’t be so overly concerned with wrapping the gift that you never give it. Better to pray awkwardly than not at all. And if you feel you should only pray when inspired, that’s okay. Just see to it that you are inspired every day!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 16
Pouring Out the Seven Disasters
I heard a shout of command from the Temple to the Seven Angels: “Begin! Pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on earth!”
2 The first Angel stepped up and poured his bowl out on earth: Loathsome, stinking sores erupted on all who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image.
3 The second Angel poured his bowl on the sea: The sea coagulated into blood, and everything in it died.
4-7 The third Angel poured his bowl on rivers and springs: The waters turned to blood. I heard the Angel of Waters say,
Righteous you are, and your judgments are righteous,
The Is, The Was, The Holy.
They poured out the blood of saints and prophets
so you’ve given them blood to drink—
they’ve gotten what they deserve!
Just then I heard the Altar chime in,
Yes, O God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Your judgments are true and just!
8-9 The fourth Angel poured his bowl on the sun: Fire blazed from the sun and scorched men and women. Burned and blistered, they cursed God’s Name, the God behind these disasters. They refused to repent, refused to honor God.
10-11 The fifth Angel poured his bowl on the throne of the Beast: Its kingdom fell into sudden eclipse. Mad with pain, men and women bit and chewed their tongues, cursed the God-of-Heaven for their torment and sores, and refused to repent and change their ways.
12-14 The sixth Angel poured his bowl on the great Euphrates River: It dried up to nothing. The dry riverbed became a fine roadbed for the kings from the East. From the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet I saw three foul demons crawl out—they looked like frogs. These are demon spirits performing signs. They’re after the kings of the whole world to get them gathered for battle on the Great Day of God, the Sovereign-Strong.
15 “Keep watch! I come unannounced, like a thief. You’re blessed if, awake and dressed, you’re ready for me. Too bad if you’re found running through the streets, naked and ashamed.”
16 The frog-demons gathered the kings together at the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.
17-21 The seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air: From the Throne in the Temple came a shout, “Done!” followed by lightning flashes and shouts, thunder crashes and a colossal earthquake—a huge and devastating earthquake, never an earthquake like it since time began. The Great City split three ways, the cities of the nations toppled to ruin. Great Babylon had to drink the wine of God’s raging anger—God remembered to give her the cup! Every island fled and not a mountain was to be found. Hailstones weighing a ton plummeted, crushing and smashing men and women as they cursed God for the hail, the epic disaster of hail.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 25, 2017
Read: James 1:5–6, 12–15
8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
James 1:12-15The Message (MSG)
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
13-15 Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.
INSIGHT:
The word translated “tempted” or “tempting” (used four times in James 1:13) comes from the Greek word peirasmos, which has two basic meanings. The first is to test the genuineness of one’s faith. This is the meaning in verses 2–4 when James encourages believers who are tempted to rejoice because “the testing of your faith” brings maturity. The second meaning, “to entice to sin or to do evil,” is intended in verses 13–15. God will not tempt or entice us to sin. His perfect holiness, purity, and goodness ensure this. Instead, the enticement to sin comes from our own sinful desires. This is the meaning of peirasmos in Matthew 26:38–41. In the garden of Gethsemane, as Christ was struggling with the necessity of going to the cross, He asked His disciples to pray with Him; instead, they slept. Jesus cautioned, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (v. 41). As we turn our temptations over to God in prayer, He will “provide a way out so that [we] can endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
For further study on this subject, reflect on Psalm 119:9–11. What do these verses say will help us overcome temptation? Sim Kay Tee
Lured Away
By Linda Washington
Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. James 1:14
In the summer of 2016, my niece convinced me to play Pokémon Go—a game played on a smartphone, using the phone’s camera. The object of the game is to capture little creatures called Pokémon. When one appears in the game, a red and white ball also appears on the phone’s screen. To capture a Pokémon, the player has to flick the ball toward it with the movement of a finger. Pokémon are more easily caught, however, by using a lure to attract them.
Pokémon characters aren’t the only ones who can be lured away. In his New Testament letter to believers, James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us that we “are dragged away by [our] own evil desire” (1:14, emphasis added). In other words, our desires work with temptation to lure us down a wrong path. Though we may be tempted to blame God or even Satan for our problems, our real danger lies within.
We can escape the lure of temptation by talking to God about the things that tempt us.
But there is good news. We can escape the lure of temptation by talking to God about the things that tempt us. Though “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone,” as James explains in 1:13, He understands our human desire to do what’s wrong. We have only to ask for the wisdom God promised to provide (1:1–6).
Lord, when I’m tempted, show me the door of escape.
Pray your way past the urge to do wrong.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 25, 2017
Sacrifice and Friendship
I have called you friends… —John 15:15
We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, “I’ll surrender if…!” Or we approach it by saying, “I suppose I have to devote my life to God.” We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.
But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit’s ultimate expression of love.
Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do Your will, O my God….” He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2).
Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional— for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.
“I have called you friends….” Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 25, 2017
One-Way Love - #7990
I thought she was the cutest little thing in junior high. She didn't think I was the cutest little thing in junior high, though. See, I decided to make an all-or-nothing play for her. I went downtown and I spent all my allowance money on this necklace for her; the finest rhinestones you have ever seen. Then I wrote this eloquently mushy note to go with it and I sealed them both in an envelope which I proceeded to hand her one day as she passed by my desk in study hall. The next day, she passed by my desk again, and I looked down and there was a familiar looking envelope with the note and the necklace in it. Ouch!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "One-Way Love."
I'll tell you, it hurts to spend a lot on someone you care about and basically have them not care. It's a feeling Jesus Christ knows all too well. In fact, without even knowing it, you may have been responding to His love that way.
That love, and the response Jesus should get from us, is clearly described in 1 John 4:10, and then verse 19, our word for today from the Word of God. Here's what it says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." And what a sacrifice-the sinless Son of God taking the filth of your sin and mine so we could be forgiven. God's one and only Son, the Prince of Heaven, abandoned by Father God because He was carrying your sin and mine. The One angels worship, with nails driven angrily through His hands and feet, a spear thrust into His side, absorbing your hell so you would never have to go there. Amazing love-unspeakable love-love which demands a verdict from you and me. Will you give yourself to the man who gave His life for you? Or will you, however politely or religiously, withhold your life from Him?
1 John 4:19 explains the only response worthy of the sacrifice. "We love Him because He first loved us." As actor-director Mel Gibson immersed himself in the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus in preparation for his movie, "The Passion of the Christ," here's how he described its impact. "The full horror of what Jesus suffered didn't really strike me. But when you finally see it and understand what He went through, it makes you feel not only compassion, but also a debt. You want to repay Him for the enormity of His sacrifice. You want to love Him in return."
It's possible to appreciate Jesus' death on the cross, to respect Him for doing it, even to be grateful for it and still miss the only response that really matters to Him-the only response that makes what He did for you on the cross really yours. The incredible Bible verse that says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son" says He did that so that, "whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) "Believe" means you grab Jesus like He's your only hope. You're abandoning every other hope you might have clung to for getting to God.
You say to Jesus, "I cannot resist this love, not any longer. Your death for me is my only hope of being forgiven and going to heaven. So Jesus, I'm giving you what you paid for. You paid for my life and my future and my eternity. I'm Yours."
If you want that, I want to help you be sure you've got it and that's why our website is there. So I urge you, at your first opportunity, to visit me there at ANewStory.com. So we can walk together down the road where you can be sure that you belong to Jesus Christ forever.
After all God's Son gave for you, I can assure you of this, God is never going to forget what you do with His Son.
Do you want to know how to deepen your prayer life? The Bible instructs in Romans 12:12 to steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer. Though there are many bad habits, there are also many good ones. At the risk of sounding like a preacher—which is what I am—may I make a suggestion? Don’t prepare to pray. Just pray. Don’t read about prayer. Just pray. Don’t attend a lecture on prayer or engage in discussion about prayer.
Just pray. Posture, tone, and place are personal matters. Select the form that works for you but don’t think about it too much. Don’t be so overly concerned with wrapping the gift that you never give it. Better to pray awkwardly than not at all. And if you feel you should only pray when inspired, that’s okay. Just see to it that you are inspired every day!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 16
Pouring Out the Seven Disasters
I heard a shout of command from the Temple to the Seven Angels: “Begin! Pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on earth!”
2 The first Angel stepped up and poured his bowl out on earth: Loathsome, stinking sores erupted on all who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image.
3 The second Angel poured his bowl on the sea: The sea coagulated into blood, and everything in it died.
4-7 The third Angel poured his bowl on rivers and springs: The waters turned to blood. I heard the Angel of Waters say,
Righteous you are, and your judgments are righteous,
The Is, The Was, The Holy.
They poured out the blood of saints and prophets
so you’ve given them blood to drink—
they’ve gotten what they deserve!
Just then I heard the Altar chime in,
Yes, O God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Your judgments are true and just!
8-9 The fourth Angel poured his bowl on the sun: Fire blazed from the sun and scorched men and women. Burned and blistered, they cursed God’s Name, the God behind these disasters. They refused to repent, refused to honor God.
10-11 The fifth Angel poured his bowl on the throne of the Beast: Its kingdom fell into sudden eclipse. Mad with pain, men and women bit and chewed their tongues, cursed the God-of-Heaven for their torment and sores, and refused to repent and change their ways.
12-14 The sixth Angel poured his bowl on the great Euphrates River: It dried up to nothing. The dry riverbed became a fine roadbed for the kings from the East. From the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet I saw three foul demons crawl out—they looked like frogs. These are demon spirits performing signs. They’re after the kings of the whole world to get them gathered for battle on the Great Day of God, the Sovereign-Strong.
15 “Keep watch! I come unannounced, like a thief. You’re blessed if, awake and dressed, you’re ready for me. Too bad if you’re found running through the streets, naked and ashamed.”
16 The frog-demons gathered the kings together at the place called in Hebrew Armageddon.
17-21 The seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air: From the Throne in the Temple came a shout, “Done!” followed by lightning flashes and shouts, thunder crashes and a colossal earthquake—a huge and devastating earthquake, never an earthquake like it since time began. The Great City split three ways, the cities of the nations toppled to ruin. Great Babylon had to drink the wine of God’s raging anger—God remembered to give her the cup! Every island fled and not a mountain was to be found. Hailstones weighing a ton plummeted, crushing and smashing men and women as they cursed God for the hail, the epic disaster of hail.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 25, 2017
Read: James 1:5–6, 12–15
8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
James 1:12-15The Message (MSG)
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
13-15 Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.
INSIGHT:
The word translated “tempted” or “tempting” (used four times in James 1:13) comes from the Greek word peirasmos, which has two basic meanings. The first is to test the genuineness of one’s faith. This is the meaning in verses 2–4 when James encourages believers who are tempted to rejoice because “the testing of your faith” brings maturity. The second meaning, “to entice to sin or to do evil,” is intended in verses 13–15. God will not tempt or entice us to sin. His perfect holiness, purity, and goodness ensure this. Instead, the enticement to sin comes from our own sinful desires. This is the meaning of peirasmos in Matthew 26:38–41. In the garden of Gethsemane, as Christ was struggling with the necessity of going to the cross, He asked His disciples to pray with Him; instead, they slept. Jesus cautioned, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (v. 41). As we turn our temptations over to God in prayer, He will “provide a way out so that [we] can endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
For further study on this subject, reflect on Psalm 119:9–11. What do these verses say will help us overcome temptation? Sim Kay Tee
Lured Away
By Linda Washington
Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. James 1:14
In the summer of 2016, my niece convinced me to play Pokémon Go—a game played on a smartphone, using the phone’s camera. The object of the game is to capture little creatures called Pokémon. When one appears in the game, a red and white ball also appears on the phone’s screen. To capture a Pokémon, the player has to flick the ball toward it with the movement of a finger. Pokémon are more easily caught, however, by using a lure to attract them.
Pokémon characters aren’t the only ones who can be lured away. In his New Testament letter to believers, James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us that we “are dragged away by [our] own evil desire” (1:14, emphasis added). In other words, our desires work with temptation to lure us down a wrong path. Though we may be tempted to blame God or even Satan for our problems, our real danger lies within.
We can escape the lure of temptation by talking to God about the things that tempt us.
But there is good news. We can escape the lure of temptation by talking to God about the things that tempt us. Though “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone,” as James explains in 1:13, He understands our human desire to do what’s wrong. We have only to ask for the wisdom God promised to provide (1:1–6).
Lord, when I’m tempted, show me the door of escape.
Pray your way past the urge to do wrong.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 25, 2017
Sacrifice and Friendship
I have called you friends… —John 15:15
We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, “I’ll surrender if…!” Or we approach it by saying, “I suppose I have to devote my life to God.” We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.
But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit’s ultimate expression of love.
Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do Your will, O my God….” He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2).
Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional— for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.
“I have called you friends….” Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 25, 2017
One-Way Love - #7990
I thought she was the cutest little thing in junior high. She didn't think I was the cutest little thing in junior high, though. See, I decided to make an all-or-nothing play for her. I went downtown and I spent all my allowance money on this necklace for her; the finest rhinestones you have ever seen. Then I wrote this eloquently mushy note to go with it and I sealed them both in an envelope which I proceeded to hand her one day as she passed by my desk in study hall. The next day, she passed by my desk again, and I looked down and there was a familiar looking envelope with the note and the necklace in it. Ouch!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "One-Way Love."
I'll tell you, it hurts to spend a lot on someone you care about and basically have them not care. It's a feeling Jesus Christ knows all too well. In fact, without even knowing it, you may have been responding to His love that way.
That love, and the response Jesus should get from us, is clearly described in 1 John 4:10, and then verse 19, our word for today from the Word of God. Here's what it says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." And what a sacrifice-the sinless Son of God taking the filth of your sin and mine so we could be forgiven. God's one and only Son, the Prince of Heaven, abandoned by Father God because He was carrying your sin and mine. The One angels worship, with nails driven angrily through His hands and feet, a spear thrust into His side, absorbing your hell so you would never have to go there. Amazing love-unspeakable love-love which demands a verdict from you and me. Will you give yourself to the man who gave His life for you? Or will you, however politely or religiously, withhold your life from Him?
1 John 4:19 explains the only response worthy of the sacrifice. "We love Him because He first loved us." As actor-director Mel Gibson immersed himself in the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus in preparation for his movie, "The Passion of the Christ," here's how he described its impact. "The full horror of what Jesus suffered didn't really strike me. But when you finally see it and understand what He went through, it makes you feel not only compassion, but also a debt. You want to repay Him for the enormity of His sacrifice. You want to love Him in return."
It's possible to appreciate Jesus' death on the cross, to respect Him for doing it, even to be grateful for it and still miss the only response that really matters to Him-the only response that makes what He did for you on the cross really yours. The incredible Bible verse that says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son" says He did that so that, "whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) "Believe" means you grab Jesus like He's your only hope. You're abandoning every other hope you might have clung to for getting to God.
You say to Jesus, "I cannot resist this love, not any longer. Your death for me is my only hope of being forgiven and going to heaven. So Jesus, I'm giving you what you paid for. You paid for my life and my future and my eternity. I'm Yours."
If you want that, I want to help you be sure you've got it and that's why our website is there. So I urge you, at your first opportunity, to visit me there at ANewStory.com. So we can walk together down the road where you can be sure that you belong to Jesus Christ forever.
After all God's Son gave for you, I can assure you of this, God is never going to forget what you do with His Son.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Ezra 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A MATTER OF THE HEART
Isn’t there a time or two when you went outside for a solution when you should have gone inward? Reminds me of the golfer about to hit his first shot on the first hole. He swung and missed the ball. Swung and whiffed again. Tried a third time, and missed again. In frustration he judged, “Man, this is a tough golf course.” He may have been right. But the golf course wasn’t the problem.
You may be right, as well. Your circumstances may be challenging, but blaming them is not the solution. Nor is neglecting them. Consider the prayer of David, who said, “Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10 NIV). Real change is an inside job. You might alter things a day or two with money and systems, but the heart of the matter is and always will be, the matter of the heart.
Read more God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 10
Ezra Takes Charge
Ezra wept, prostrate in front of The Temple of God. As he prayed and confessed, a huge number of the men, women, and children of Israel gathered around him. All the people were now weeping as if their hearts would break.
2-3 Shecaniah son of Jehiel of the family of Elam, acting as spokesman, said to Ezra: “We betrayed our God by marrying foreign wives from the people around here. But all is not lost; there is still hope for Israel. Let’s make a covenant right now with our God, agreeing to get rid of all these wives and their children, just as my master and those who honor God’s commandment are saying. It’s what The Revelation says, so let’s do it.
4 “Now get up, Ezra. Take charge—we’re behind you. Don’t back down.”
5 So Ezra stood up and had the leaders of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel solemnly swear to do what Shecaniah proposed. And they did it.
6 Then Ezra left the plaza in front of The Temple of God and went to the home of Jehohanan son of Eliashib where he stayed, still fasting from food and drink, continuing his mourning over the betrayal by the exiles.
7-8 A notice was then sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem ordering all the exiles to meet in Jerusalem. Anyone who failed to show up in three days, in compliance with the ruling of the leaders and elders, would have all his possessions confiscated and be thrown out of the congregation of the returned exiles.
9 All the men of Judah and Benjamin met in Jerusalem within the three days. It was the twentieth day of the ninth month. They all sat down in the plaza in front of The Temple of God. Because of the business before them, and aggravated by the buckets of rain coming down on them, they were restless, uneasy, and anxious.
10-11 Ezra the priest stood up and spoke: “You’ve broken trust. You’ve married foreign wives. You’ve piled guilt on Israel. Now make your confession to God, the God of your ancestors, and do what he wants you to do: Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”
12 The whole congregation responded with a shout, “Yes, we’ll do it—just the way you said it!”
13-14 They also said, “But look, do you see how many people there are out here? And it’s the rainy season; you can’t expect us to stand out here soaking wet until this is done—why, it will take days! A lot of us are deeply involved in this transgression. Let our leaders act on behalf of the whole congregation. Have everybody who lives in cities and who has married a foreign wife come at an appointed time, accompanied by the elders and judges of each city. We’ll keep at this until the hot anger of our God over this thing is turned away.”
15-17 Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this. So the exiles went ahead with the plan. Ezra the priest picked men who were family heads, each one by name. They sat down together on the first day of the tenth month to pursue the matter. By the first day of the first month they had finished dealing with every man who had married a foreign wife.
18-19 Among the families of priests, the following were found to have married foreign wives:
The family of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. They all promised to divorce their wives and sealed it with a handshake. For their guilt they brought a ram from the flock as a Compensation-Offering.
20 The family of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah.
21 The family of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah.
22 The family of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Elasah.
23 From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah—that is, Kelita—Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.
24 From the singers: Eliashib.
From the temple security guards: Shallum, Telem, and Uri.
25 And from the other Israelites:
The family of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah, and Benaiah.
26 The family of Elam: Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, and Elijah.
27 The family of Zattu: Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, and Aziza.
28 The family of Bebai: Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, and Athlai.
29 The family of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, and Jeremoth.
30 The family of Pahath-Moab: Adna, Kelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui, and Manasseh.
31-32 The family of Harim: Eliezer, Ishijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah.
33 The family of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei.
34-37 The family of Bani: Maadai, Amram, Uel, Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhi, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Jaasu.
38-42 The family of Binnui: Shimei, Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah, Macnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph.
43 The family of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel, and Benaiah.
44 All these had married foreign wives and some had also had children by them.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Read: Philippians 2:1–11
He Took on the Status of a Slave
1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
INSIGHT:
Many scholars believe the apostle Paul embedded an early hymn in his letter to the Philippians. Chapter 2:6–11 is comprised of six couplets that seem to lend themselves to an ancient form of singing. These carefully crafted lines show what it means to believe in and follow Christ. In stark contrast to other kings of the world, Jesus gave up the glory and honor of heaven to be crowned with the thorns and mockery of His crucifixion. Instead of using others for His own pleasure, He sacrificed Himself to lovingly come to our rescue.
Christ’s selfless sacrifice impacted Paul. He mirrored what Christ suffered for us when he showed his willingness to suffer for others.
In what ways can we show self-sacrificing love to others? Mart DeHaan
The Interests of Others
By Dave Branon
In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests. Philippians 2:3–4
My friend Jaime works for a huge international corporation. In his early days with the company, a man came by his desk, struck up a conversation, and asked Jaime what he did there. After telling the man about his work, Jaime asked the man his name. “My name is Rich,” he replied.
“Nice to meet you,” Jaime answered. “And what do you do around here?”
In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests. Philippians 2:3–4
“Oh, I am the owner.”
Jaime suddenly realized that this casual, humble conversation was his introduction to one of the richest men in the world.
In this day of self-glorification and the celebration of “me,” this little story can serve as a reminder of Paul’s important words in the book of Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (2:3). People who turn their attention to others and not on themselves have the characteristics Paul mentions.
When we “value others above [ourselves],” we demonstrate Christlike humility (v. 3). We mirror Jesus, who came not “to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). When we take “the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), we have the mindset of Jesus (v. 5).
As we interact with others today, let’s not look on our own interests alone but also “to the interests of the others” (v. 4).
Jesus, You gave us the model of humility when You left heaven’s splendors to become a humble servant on earth. Help us practice Christlike humility in everything we do.
Serve God by serving others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? —Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God’s will to give you what you ask. Don’t faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a “good child” in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, “I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings”? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a “good child.”
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God’s child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong— a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, “Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8).
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Dirty Hands Detector - #7989
It's a battle every mother has fought in every generation. That three-word charge that can mean the difference between getting sick or being well - "Wash your hands." Of course, it would be OK with most kids if washing their hands was a monthly thing, or at most maybe once a week. Our kids did it. I suppose you know at least one other who has done it. They come in from doing who knows what with those hands and they say, "They're not dirty." Now there may not be any brown slime dripping from those little hands, but you can be sure they're carrying a lot of nasty little critters. And it's amazing what happens when you get some soap and water on those hands - the sink is suddenly covered with some pretty yucky-looking stuff coming off those hands. Surprise, kid - you couldn't see it, but your hands were dirty. You just didn't realize how dirty!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Dirty Hands Detector."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Chronicles 30:15, where some folks who thought they were clean found out about some dirt they didn't know they were carrying. It's the time of King Hezekiah, one of the greatest of Judah's rulers. When he takes the throne, the nation is a moral and spiritual sewer, with idolatrous altars literally on every street corner. But Hezekiah turns his entire culture around and leads the people into a powerful, national revival.
But it started with the spiritual leaders. You know what, it still does today. After cleaning out the neglected and defiled temple of God, Hezekiah calls the people together for a national Passover celebration. It's been a long time since the people of God have observed this holy remembrance of God's deliverance. Listen to what happens to the spiritual leaders, the priests and the Levites, as they begin to prepare for this holy moment. "They slaughtered the Passover lamb...The priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the temple of the Lord. Then they took up their regular positions." Here the leaders are, in the middle of preparing for a service, and suddenly they stop what they're doing. They're ashamed. Suddenly, they are deeply aware of their sin, their compromise, their failures. What do they do to get over the shame? They consecrate themselves to God...they get rid of the garbage.
There's something pretty powerful here - something that any of us who have been given any spiritual leadership needs to absorb. Like these priests and Levites, Maybe you've been entrusted with some spiritual responsibility. You're teaching or you're leading, you're broadcasting, or parenting, or preaching, counseling, organizing or administering God's work. Look what happened to the spiritual leaders in Hezekiah's day. As they began to handle the holy, they realized they were not holy enough to handle it! They didn't realize what dirt there was on their hands until they began to handle holy things.
That's exactly what should be happening to you and me as we do the work God has given us - seeing the dirt we need to deal with before we handle the holy. First, we need to always remember we are handling the very things of God - our holy, holy, holy God. Do not ever let your work for Him become careless, or mechanical, or self-serving. It's a solemn - even dangerous - mistake to handle the holy without clean hands. That's why God says in Isaiah 52:11, "Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord."
Serving Christ is not fun-and-games or just some little spiritual exercise. It requires a holy life behind it. It produces a holy life, if you let it sink in what an incredible honor it is to be asked by a thrice-holy God to handle what is His. Like a child, you may look at what people can see of you and say, "My hands aren't dirty." But let your Savior begin to show you what you're doing that He can't bless - let Him cleanse your hands before you touch the sacred.
No child should handle food without clean hands. No child of God should handle the holy work of God without hands, without a heart, that God would call clean.
Isn’t there a time or two when you went outside for a solution when you should have gone inward? Reminds me of the golfer about to hit his first shot on the first hole. He swung and missed the ball. Swung and whiffed again. Tried a third time, and missed again. In frustration he judged, “Man, this is a tough golf course.” He may have been right. But the golf course wasn’t the problem.
You may be right, as well. Your circumstances may be challenging, but blaming them is not the solution. Nor is neglecting them. Consider the prayer of David, who said, “Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10 NIV). Real change is an inside job. You might alter things a day or two with money and systems, but the heart of the matter is and always will be, the matter of the heart.
Read more God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 10
Ezra Takes Charge
Ezra wept, prostrate in front of The Temple of God. As he prayed and confessed, a huge number of the men, women, and children of Israel gathered around him. All the people were now weeping as if their hearts would break.
2-3 Shecaniah son of Jehiel of the family of Elam, acting as spokesman, said to Ezra: “We betrayed our God by marrying foreign wives from the people around here. But all is not lost; there is still hope for Israel. Let’s make a covenant right now with our God, agreeing to get rid of all these wives and their children, just as my master and those who honor God’s commandment are saying. It’s what The Revelation says, so let’s do it.
4 “Now get up, Ezra. Take charge—we’re behind you. Don’t back down.”
5 So Ezra stood up and had the leaders of the priests, the Levites, and all Israel solemnly swear to do what Shecaniah proposed. And they did it.
6 Then Ezra left the plaza in front of The Temple of God and went to the home of Jehohanan son of Eliashib where he stayed, still fasting from food and drink, continuing his mourning over the betrayal by the exiles.
7-8 A notice was then sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem ordering all the exiles to meet in Jerusalem. Anyone who failed to show up in three days, in compliance with the ruling of the leaders and elders, would have all his possessions confiscated and be thrown out of the congregation of the returned exiles.
9 All the men of Judah and Benjamin met in Jerusalem within the three days. It was the twentieth day of the ninth month. They all sat down in the plaza in front of The Temple of God. Because of the business before them, and aggravated by the buckets of rain coming down on them, they were restless, uneasy, and anxious.
10-11 Ezra the priest stood up and spoke: “You’ve broken trust. You’ve married foreign wives. You’ve piled guilt on Israel. Now make your confession to God, the God of your ancestors, and do what he wants you to do: Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”
12 The whole congregation responded with a shout, “Yes, we’ll do it—just the way you said it!”
13-14 They also said, “But look, do you see how many people there are out here? And it’s the rainy season; you can’t expect us to stand out here soaking wet until this is done—why, it will take days! A lot of us are deeply involved in this transgression. Let our leaders act on behalf of the whole congregation. Have everybody who lives in cities and who has married a foreign wife come at an appointed time, accompanied by the elders and judges of each city. We’ll keep at this until the hot anger of our God over this thing is turned away.”
15-17 Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah, supported by Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite, opposed this. So the exiles went ahead with the plan. Ezra the priest picked men who were family heads, each one by name. They sat down together on the first day of the tenth month to pursue the matter. By the first day of the first month they had finished dealing with every man who had married a foreign wife.
18-19 Among the families of priests, the following were found to have married foreign wives:
The family of Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. They all promised to divorce their wives and sealed it with a handshake. For their guilt they brought a ram from the flock as a Compensation-Offering.
20 The family of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah.
21 The family of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah.
22 The family of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Elasah.
23 From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah—that is, Kelita—Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer.
24 From the singers: Eliashib.
From the temple security guards: Shallum, Telem, and Uri.
25 And from the other Israelites:
The family of Parosh: Ramiah, Izziah, Malkijah, Mijamin, Eleazar, Malkijah, and Benaiah.
26 The family of Elam: Mattaniah, Zechariah, Jehiel, Abdi, Jeremoth, and Elijah.
27 The family of Zattu: Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Jeremoth, Zabad, and Aziza.
28 The family of Bebai: Jehohanan, Hananiah, Zabbai, and Athlai.
29 The family of Bani: Meshullam, Malluch, Adaiah, Jashub, Sheal, and Jeremoth.
30 The family of Pahath-Moab: Adna, Kelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, Binnui, and Manasseh.
31-32 The family of Harim: Eliezer, Ishijah, Malkijah, Shemaiah, Shimeon, Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah.
33 The family of Hashum: Mattenai, Mattattah, Zabad, Eliphelet, Jeremai, Manasseh, and Shimei.
34-37 The family of Bani: Maadai, Amram, Uel, Benaiah, Bedeiah, Keluhi, Vaniah, Meremoth, Eliashib, Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Jaasu.
38-42 The family of Binnui: Shimei, Shelemiah, Nathan, Adaiah, Macnadebai, Shashai, Sharai, Azarel, Shelemiah, Shemariah, Shallum, Amariah, and Joseph.
43 The family of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Jaddai, Joel, and Benaiah.
44 All these had married foreign wives and some had also had children by them.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Read: Philippians 2:1–11
He Took on the Status of a Slave
1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
INSIGHT:
Many scholars believe the apostle Paul embedded an early hymn in his letter to the Philippians. Chapter 2:6–11 is comprised of six couplets that seem to lend themselves to an ancient form of singing. These carefully crafted lines show what it means to believe in and follow Christ. In stark contrast to other kings of the world, Jesus gave up the glory and honor of heaven to be crowned with the thorns and mockery of His crucifixion. Instead of using others for His own pleasure, He sacrificed Himself to lovingly come to our rescue.
Christ’s selfless sacrifice impacted Paul. He mirrored what Christ suffered for us when he showed his willingness to suffer for others.
In what ways can we show self-sacrificing love to others? Mart DeHaan
The Interests of Others
By Dave Branon
In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests. Philippians 2:3–4
My friend Jaime works for a huge international corporation. In his early days with the company, a man came by his desk, struck up a conversation, and asked Jaime what he did there. After telling the man about his work, Jaime asked the man his name. “My name is Rich,” he replied.
“Nice to meet you,” Jaime answered. “And what do you do around here?”
In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests. Philippians 2:3–4
“Oh, I am the owner.”
Jaime suddenly realized that this casual, humble conversation was his introduction to one of the richest men in the world.
In this day of self-glorification and the celebration of “me,” this little story can serve as a reminder of Paul’s important words in the book of Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit” (2:3). People who turn their attention to others and not on themselves have the characteristics Paul mentions.
When we “value others above [ourselves],” we demonstrate Christlike humility (v. 3). We mirror Jesus, who came not “to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). When we take “the very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), we have the mindset of Jesus (v. 5).
As we interact with others today, let’s not look on our own interests alone but also “to the interests of the others” (v. 4).
Jesus, You gave us the model of humility when You left heaven’s splendors to become a humble servant on earth. Help us practice Christlike humility in everything we do.
Serve God by serving others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? —Matthew 7:9
The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God’s will to give you what you ask. Don’t faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a “good child” in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, “I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings”? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a “good child.”
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God’s child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong— a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, “Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8).
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 24, 2017
The Dirty Hands Detector - #7989
It's a battle every mother has fought in every generation. That three-word charge that can mean the difference between getting sick or being well - "Wash your hands." Of course, it would be OK with most kids if washing their hands was a monthly thing, or at most maybe once a week. Our kids did it. I suppose you know at least one other who has done it. They come in from doing who knows what with those hands and they say, "They're not dirty." Now there may not be any brown slime dripping from those little hands, but you can be sure they're carrying a lot of nasty little critters. And it's amazing what happens when you get some soap and water on those hands - the sink is suddenly covered with some pretty yucky-looking stuff coming off those hands. Surprise, kid - you couldn't see it, but your hands were dirty. You just didn't realize how dirty!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Dirty Hands Detector."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Chronicles 30:15, where some folks who thought they were clean found out about some dirt they didn't know they were carrying. It's the time of King Hezekiah, one of the greatest of Judah's rulers. When he takes the throne, the nation is a moral and spiritual sewer, with idolatrous altars literally on every street corner. But Hezekiah turns his entire culture around and leads the people into a powerful, national revival.
But it started with the spiritual leaders. You know what, it still does today. After cleaning out the neglected and defiled temple of God, Hezekiah calls the people together for a national Passover celebration. It's been a long time since the people of God have observed this holy remembrance of God's deliverance. Listen to what happens to the spiritual leaders, the priests and the Levites, as they begin to prepare for this holy moment. "They slaughtered the Passover lamb...The priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the temple of the Lord. Then they took up their regular positions." Here the leaders are, in the middle of preparing for a service, and suddenly they stop what they're doing. They're ashamed. Suddenly, they are deeply aware of their sin, their compromise, their failures. What do they do to get over the shame? They consecrate themselves to God...they get rid of the garbage.
There's something pretty powerful here - something that any of us who have been given any spiritual leadership needs to absorb. Like these priests and Levites, Maybe you've been entrusted with some spiritual responsibility. You're teaching or you're leading, you're broadcasting, or parenting, or preaching, counseling, organizing or administering God's work. Look what happened to the spiritual leaders in Hezekiah's day. As they began to handle the holy, they realized they were not holy enough to handle it! They didn't realize what dirt there was on their hands until they began to handle holy things.
That's exactly what should be happening to you and me as we do the work God has given us - seeing the dirt we need to deal with before we handle the holy. First, we need to always remember we are handling the very things of God - our holy, holy, holy God. Do not ever let your work for Him become careless, or mechanical, or self-serving. It's a solemn - even dangerous - mistake to handle the holy without clean hands. That's why God says in Isaiah 52:11, "Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord."
Serving Christ is not fun-and-games or just some little spiritual exercise. It requires a holy life behind it. It produces a holy life, if you let it sink in what an incredible honor it is to be asked by a thrice-holy God to handle what is His. Like a child, you may look at what people can see of you and say, "My hands aren't dirty." But let your Savior begin to show you what you're doing that He can't bless - let Him cleanse your hands before you touch the sacred.
No child should handle food without clean hands. No child of God should handle the holy work of God without hands, without a heart, that God would call clean.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Ezra 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DO-IT-YOURSELF CHRISTIANITY
Do-it-yourself Christianity isn’t much encouragement to the done in and worn out! “Try a little harder” is little encouragement for the abused. At some point we need more than good advice; we need help. Somewhere on this journey we realize that a fifty-fifty proposition is too little. We need help from the inside out. The kind of help Jesus promised.
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But know him, because he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
Note the dwelling place of God…in you. Not near us or above us, but in us! In the hidden recesses of our being dwells, not an angel, not a philosophy, not a genie, but God. Imagine that!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 9
Ezra Prays: “Look at Us . . . Guilty Before You”
1-2 After all this was done, the leaders came to me and said, “The People of Israel, priests and Levites included, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring people around here with all their vulgar obscenities—Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites. They have given some of their daughters in marriage to them and have taken some of their daughters for marriage to their sons. The holy seed is now all mixed in with these other peoples. And our leaders have led the way in this betrayal.”
3 When I heard all this, I ripped my clothes and my cape; I pulled hair from my head and out of my beard; I slumped to the ground, appalled.
4-6 Many were in fear and trembling because of what God was saying about the betrayal by the exiles. They gathered around me as I sat there in despair, waiting for the evening sacrifice. At the evening sacrifice I picked myself up from my utter devastation, and in my ripped clothes and cape fell to my knees and stretched out my hands to God, my God. And I prayed:
6-7 “My dear God, I’m so totally ashamed, I can’t bear to face you. O my God—our iniquities are piled up so high that we can’t see out; our guilt touches the skies. We’ve been stuck in a muck of guilt since the time of our ancestors until right now; we and our kings and priests, because of our sins, have been turned over to foreign kings, to killing, to captivity, to looting, and to public shame—just as you see us now.
8-9 “Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence. We were slaves; yet even as slaves, our God didn’t abandon us. He has put us in the good graces of the kings of Persia and given us the heart to build The Temple of our God, restore its ruins, and construct a defensive wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
10-12 “And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind, the commands you gave us through your servants the prophets. They told us, ‘The land you’re taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities of the people who live there; they’ve filled it with their moral rot from one end to the other. Whatever you do, don’t give your daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their daughters. Don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.’
13-15 “And now this, on top of all we’ve already suffered because of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God, punished us far less than we deserved and even went ahead and gave us this present escape. Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely, without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all? You are the righteous God of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees. Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can last long like this.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Read: Psalm 32:1–11
A David Psalm
Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—
you get a fresh start,
your slate’s wiped clean.
2 Count yourself lucky—
God holds nothing against you
and you’re holding nothing back from him.
3 When I kept it all inside,
my bones turned to powder,
my words became daylong groans.
4 The pressure never let up;
all the juices of my life dried up.
5 Then I let it all out;
I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”
Suddenly the pressure was gone—
my guilt dissolved,
my sin disappeared.
6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
we’ll be on high ground, untouched.
7 God’s my island hideaway,
keeps danger far from the shore,
throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
8 Let me give you some good advice;
I’m looking you in the eye
and giving it to you straight:
9 “Don’t be ornery like a horse or mule
that needs bit and bridle
to stay on track.”
10 God-defiers are always in trouble;
God-affirmers find themselves loved
every time they turn around.
11 Celebrate God.
Sing together—everyone!
All you honest hearts, raise the roof!
INSIGHT:
A burdened conscience is a heavy weight to carry. Ever since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, our response to sin has been either to blame others (Gen. 3:12–13) or take responsibility for our transgression before God (1 John 1:9). The penitent in today’s psalm acknowledges his transgressions to his Creator and Redeemer and experiences the cleansing of his conscience and with it the lifting of a burdensome load. Clearly this psalm teaches us that we can experience freedom from the bondage of sin through divine forgiveness.
When has guilt and remorse racked your soul? How did God’s forgiveness and cleansing provide freedom? Dennis Fisher
Our Guilt Is Gone
By Xochitl Dixon
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
As a young girl, I invited a friend to browse with me through a gift shop near my home. She shocked me, though, by shoving a handful of colorful crayon-shaped barrettes into my pocket and yanking me out the door of the shop without paying for them. Guilt gnawed at me for a week before I approached my mom—my confession pouring out as quickly as my tears.
Grieved over my bad choice of not resisting my friend, I returned the stolen items, apologized, and vowed never to steal again. The owner told me never to come back. But because my mom forgave me and assured me that I had done my best to make things right, I slept peacefully that night.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
King David also rested in forgiveness through confession (Ps. 32:1–2). He had hidden his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Sam. 11–12) until his “strength was sapped” (Ps. 32:3–4). But once David refused to “cover up” his wrongs, the Lord erased his guilt (v. 5). God protected him “from trouble” and wrapped him in “songs of deliverance” (v. 7). David rejoiced because the “Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him” (v. 10).
We can’t choose the consequences of our sins or control people’s responses when we confess and seek forgiveness. But the Lord can empower us to enjoy freedom from the bondage of sin and peace through confession, as He confirms that our guilt is gone—forever.
Lord, when we confess our sins and receive Your forgiveness, please help us believe our guilt is completely and forever wiped away.
When God forgives, our guilt is gone.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. Disciples Indeed, 395 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The Password For Heaven - #7988
I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. If you work in an office, chances are they make sure that they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer – obviously they're all protected from any funny business by something we call a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? Nope!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Password For Heaven."
Our word for today from the Word of God is important mostly for one group of people-people who want to go to heaven when they die; Isn't that just about all of us? This statement by the God whose heaven it is reveals the only password that will get you in. And the last thing God wants for it to be is a secret. He really wants you to be there with Him forever, but there's only one way possible.
Acts 4:12 – The disciples have just healed a lame man in the name of Jesus. Then, through them, God says, "Salvation is found in no one else." (When you hear that word salvation, think rescue-like first responders going in to save the lives of people trapped in a collapsed building.) "Salvation (rescue) is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." No one else but Jesus. No other name but Jesus-the only way to be saved, to be rescued.
From what? From the eternal death penalty that the Bible says we all have facing us because we've taken the life God gave us and, in essence, we've made ourselves "God" in our life. My Creator was supposed to run this life that He gave me and I ran it instead. The Bible says every one of us has done that. And there's no religion that can possibly pay or remove that death penalty, including the Christian religion. What we need to be saved from is hell itself. Without that, any hope you or I have for heaven is false hope.
But why is there "no one else", "No other name", other than Jesus? Why is He God's password to heaven? In a world that so values tolerance and open-mindedness, isn't it colossal arrogance to say He's the only way to heaven? Well, I didn't say it. The Bible did. Jesus did when He said, "I am the way...no man comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) It isn't so much about one religion being right and the others wrong. In fact, it's not about religion at all. It's about a spiritual death penalty that can only be paid one way-Somebody's got to die. And that's why Jesus came. In His words, He "came to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, He was dying so you don't have to. And the day He walked out of His grave, He proved He's got the power to turn your death sentence into eternal life.
Only someone with no sin of their own could take your place, and that would have to be the Son of God. No one else could have died for you. No one else even claimed to die for you; which leaves us with the question on which everything rests, "On what are you basing your hope for heaven?" If your password is the good things you've done or your spiritual background or your religion-no chance. Because your only hope is pinning all your hopes on Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a time when you clearly, consciously, personally told Jesus that you were placing all your trust in Him? The day you do is the day you trade forever the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. And this could be that day. With your forever at stake and with life so unpredictable, waiting another day just doesn't make sense.
So today would you say, "Jesus, I understand that You and You alone are the password to heaven, the door to Heaven, the One who opened that door by Your death on the cross for me. I am Yours." Please go to our website and there you will find the information you need to nail down once and for all that you actually belong to Jesus Christ and are going to heaven. ANewStory.com.
Your hell cancelled, your heaven guaranteed-today. If you'll enter in through the only name God will accept. That is His son. That is Jesus.
Do-it-yourself Christianity isn’t much encouragement to the done in and worn out! “Try a little harder” is little encouragement for the abused. At some point we need more than good advice; we need help. Somewhere on this journey we realize that a fifty-fifty proposition is too little. We need help from the inside out. The kind of help Jesus promised.
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But know him, because he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
Note the dwelling place of God…in you. Not near us or above us, but in us! In the hidden recesses of our being dwells, not an angel, not a philosophy, not a genie, but God. Imagine that!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 9
Ezra Prays: “Look at Us . . . Guilty Before You”
1-2 After all this was done, the leaders came to me and said, “The People of Israel, priests and Levites included, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring people around here with all their vulgar obscenities—Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites. They have given some of their daughters in marriage to them and have taken some of their daughters for marriage to their sons. The holy seed is now all mixed in with these other peoples. And our leaders have led the way in this betrayal.”
3 When I heard all this, I ripped my clothes and my cape; I pulled hair from my head and out of my beard; I slumped to the ground, appalled.
4-6 Many were in fear and trembling because of what God was saying about the betrayal by the exiles. They gathered around me as I sat there in despair, waiting for the evening sacrifice. At the evening sacrifice I picked myself up from my utter devastation, and in my ripped clothes and cape fell to my knees and stretched out my hands to God, my God. And I prayed:
6-7 “My dear God, I’m so totally ashamed, I can’t bear to face you. O my God—our iniquities are piled up so high that we can’t see out; our guilt touches the skies. We’ve been stuck in a muck of guilt since the time of our ancestors until right now; we and our kings and priests, because of our sins, have been turned over to foreign kings, to killing, to captivity, to looting, and to public shame—just as you see us now.
8-9 “Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence. We were slaves; yet even as slaves, our God didn’t abandon us. He has put us in the good graces of the kings of Persia and given us the heart to build The Temple of our God, restore its ruins, and construct a defensive wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
10-12 “And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind, the commands you gave us through your servants the prophets. They told us, ‘The land you’re taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities of the people who live there; they’ve filled it with their moral rot from one end to the other. Whatever you do, don’t give your daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their daughters. Don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.’
13-15 “And now this, on top of all we’ve already suffered because of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God, punished us far less than we deserved and even went ahead and gave us this present escape. Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely, without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all? You are the righteous God of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees. Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can last long like this.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Read: Psalm 32:1–11
A David Psalm
Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—
you get a fresh start,
your slate’s wiped clean.
2 Count yourself lucky—
God holds nothing against you
and you’re holding nothing back from him.
3 When I kept it all inside,
my bones turned to powder,
my words became daylong groans.
4 The pressure never let up;
all the juices of my life dried up.
5 Then I let it all out;
I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”
Suddenly the pressure was gone—
my guilt dissolved,
my sin disappeared.
6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
we’ll be on high ground, untouched.
7 God’s my island hideaway,
keeps danger far from the shore,
throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
8 Let me give you some good advice;
I’m looking you in the eye
and giving it to you straight:
9 “Don’t be ornery like a horse or mule
that needs bit and bridle
to stay on track.”
10 God-defiers are always in trouble;
God-affirmers find themselves loved
every time they turn around.
11 Celebrate God.
Sing together—everyone!
All you honest hearts, raise the roof!
INSIGHT:
A burdened conscience is a heavy weight to carry. Ever since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, our response to sin has been either to blame others (Gen. 3:12–13) or take responsibility for our transgression before God (1 John 1:9). The penitent in today’s psalm acknowledges his transgressions to his Creator and Redeemer and experiences the cleansing of his conscience and with it the lifting of a burdensome load. Clearly this psalm teaches us that we can experience freedom from the bondage of sin through divine forgiveness.
When has guilt and remorse racked your soul? How did God’s forgiveness and cleansing provide freedom? Dennis Fisher
Our Guilt Is Gone
By Xochitl Dixon
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
As a young girl, I invited a friend to browse with me through a gift shop near my home. She shocked me, though, by shoving a handful of colorful crayon-shaped barrettes into my pocket and yanking me out the door of the shop without paying for them. Guilt gnawed at me for a week before I approached my mom—my confession pouring out as quickly as my tears.
Grieved over my bad choice of not resisting my friend, I returned the stolen items, apologized, and vowed never to steal again. The owner told me never to come back. But because my mom forgave me and assured me that I had done my best to make things right, I slept peacefully that night.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
King David also rested in forgiveness through confession (Ps. 32:1–2). He had hidden his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Sam. 11–12) until his “strength was sapped” (Ps. 32:3–4). But once David refused to “cover up” his wrongs, the Lord erased his guilt (v. 5). God protected him “from trouble” and wrapped him in “songs of deliverance” (v. 7). David rejoiced because the “Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him” (v. 10).
We can’t choose the consequences of our sins or control people’s responses when we confess and seek forgiveness. But the Lord can empower us to enjoy freedom from the bondage of sin and peace through confession, as He confirms that our guilt is gone—forever.
Lord, when we confess our sins and receive Your forgiveness, please help us believe our guilt is completely and forever wiped away.
When God forgives, our guilt is gone.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. Disciples Indeed, 395 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The Password For Heaven - #7988
I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. If you work in an office, chances are they make sure that they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer – obviously they're all protected from any funny business by something we call a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? Nope!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Password For Heaven."
Our word for today from the Word of God is important mostly for one group of people-people who want to go to heaven when they die; Isn't that just about all of us? This statement by the God whose heaven it is reveals the only password that will get you in. And the last thing God wants for it to be is a secret. He really wants you to be there with Him forever, but there's only one way possible.
Acts 4:12 – The disciples have just healed a lame man in the name of Jesus. Then, through them, God says, "Salvation is found in no one else." (When you hear that word salvation, think rescue-like first responders going in to save the lives of people trapped in a collapsed building.) "Salvation (rescue) is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." No one else but Jesus. No other name but Jesus-the only way to be saved, to be rescued.
From what? From the eternal death penalty that the Bible says we all have facing us because we've taken the life God gave us and, in essence, we've made ourselves "God" in our life. My Creator was supposed to run this life that He gave me and I ran it instead. The Bible says every one of us has done that. And there's no religion that can possibly pay or remove that death penalty, including the Christian religion. What we need to be saved from is hell itself. Without that, any hope you or I have for heaven is false hope.
But why is there "no one else", "No other name", other than Jesus? Why is He God's password to heaven? In a world that so values tolerance and open-mindedness, isn't it colossal arrogance to say He's the only way to heaven? Well, I didn't say it. The Bible did. Jesus did when He said, "I am the way...no man comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) It isn't so much about one religion being right and the others wrong. In fact, it's not about religion at all. It's about a spiritual death penalty that can only be paid one way-Somebody's got to die. And that's why Jesus came. In His words, He "came to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, He was dying so you don't have to. And the day He walked out of His grave, He proved He's got the power to turn your death sentence into eternal life.
Only someone with no sin of their own could take your place, and that would have to be the Son of God. No one else could have died for you. No one else even claimed to die for you; which leaves us with the question on which everything rests, "On what are you basing your hope for heaven?" If your password is the good things you've done or your spiritual background or your religion-no chance. Because your only hope is pinning all your hopes on Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a time when you clearly, consciously, personally told Jesus that you were placing all your trust in Him? The day you do is the day you trade forever the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. And this could be that day. With your forever at stake and with life so unpredictable, waiting another day just doesn't make sense.
So today would you say, "Jesus, I understand that You and You alone are the password to heaven, the door to Heaven, the One who opened that door by Your death on the cross for me. I am Yours." Please go to our website and there you will find the information you need to nail down once and for all that you actually belong to Jesus Christ and are going to heaven. ANewStory.com.
Your hell cancelled, your heaven guaranteed-today. If you'll enter in through the only name God will accept. That is His son. That is Jesus.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Ezra 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: COME TO ME
There is a correlation between the way you feel about yourself and the way you feel about others. If you are at peace with yourself you will get along with others. The converse is also true. If you don’t like yourself, if you are ashamed, embarrassed, or angry, other people are going to know it. Unless the cycle is interrupted!
Which takes us to one of the kindest verses in the Bible. Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives” (Matthew 11:28-29).
“Come to me,” the verse reads! Let Christ be kind to you…and as you do, you’ll find it easier to be kind to others.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 8
1-14 These are the family heads and those who signed up to go up with me from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes the king:
From the family of Phinehas: Gershom
Family of Ithamar: Daniel
Family of David: Hattush
Family of Shecaniah
Family of Parosh: Zechariah, and with him 150 men signed up
Family of Pahath-Moab: Eliehoenai son of Zerahiah, and 200 men
Family of Zattu: Shecaniah son of Jahaziel, and 300 men
Family of Adin: Ebed son of Jonathan, and 50 men
Family of Elam: Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and 70 men
Family of Shephatiah: Zebadiah son of Michael, and 80 men
Family of Joab: Obadiah son of Jehiel, and 218 men
Family of Bani: Shelomith son of Josiphiah, and 160 men
Family of Bebai: Zechariah son of Bebai, and 28 men
Family of Azgad: Johanan son of Hakkatan, and 110 men
Family of Adonikam (bringing up the rear): their names were Eliphelet, Jeuel, Shemaiah, and 60 men
Family of Bigvai: Uthai and Zaccur, and 70 men.
15-17 I gathered them together at the canal that runs to Ahava. We camped there three days. I looked them over and found that they were all laymen and priests but no Levites. So I sent for the leaders Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, and for the teachers Joiarib and Elnathan. I then sent them to Iddo, who is head of the town of Casiphia, and told them what to say to Iddo and his relatives who lived there in Casiphia: “Send us ministers for The Temple of God.”
18-20 Well, the generous hand of our God was on us, and they brought back to us a wise man from the family of Mahli son of Levi, the son of Israel. His name was Sherebiah. With sons and brothers they numbered eighteen. They also brought Hashabiah and Jeshaiah of the family of Merari, with brothers and their sons, another twenty. And then there were 220 temple servants, descendants of the temple servants that David and the princes had assigned to help the Levites in their work. They were all signed up by name.
21-22 I proclaimed a fast there beside the Ahava Canal, a fast to humble ourselves before our God and pray for wise guidance for our journey—all our people and possessions. I was embarrassed to ask the king for a cavalry bodyguard to protect us from bandits on the road. We had just told the king, “Our God lovingly looks after all those who seek him, but turns away in disgust from those who leave him.”
23 So we fasted and prayed about these concerns. And he listened.
24-27 Then I picked twelve of the leading priests—Sherebiah and Hashabiah with ten of their brothers. I weighed out for them the silver, the gold, the vessels, and the offerings for The Temple of our God that the king, his advisors, and all the Israelites had given:
25 tons of silver
100 vessels of silver valued at three and three-quarter tons of gold
20 gold bowls weighing eighteen and a half pounds
2 vessels of bright red copper, as valuable as gold.
28-29 I said to them, “You are holy to God and these vessels are holy. The silver and gold are Freewill-Offerings to the God of your ancestors. Guard them with your lives until you’re able to weigh them out in a secure place in The Temple of our God for the priests and Levites and family heads who are in charge in Jerusalem.”
30 The priests and Levites took charge of all that had been weighed out to them, and prepared to deliver it to Jerusalem to The Temple of our God.
31 We left the Ahava Canal on the twelfth day of the first month to travel to Jerusalem. God was with us all the way and kept us safe from bandits and highwaymen.
32-34 We arrived in Jerusalem and waited there three days. On the fourth day the silver and gold and vessels were weighed out in The Temple of our God into the hands of Meremoth son of Uriah, the priest. Eleazar son of Phinehas was there with him, also the Levites Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui. Everything was counted and weighed and the totals recorded.
35 When they arrived, the exiles, now returned from captivity, offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings to the God of Israel:
12 bulls, representing all Israel
96 rams
77 lambs
12 he-goats as an Absolution-Offering.
All of this was sacrificed as a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God.
36 They also delivered the king’s orders to the king’s provincial administration assigned to the land beyond the Euphrates. They, in turn, gave their support to the people and The Temple of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Read: John 4:35–38
34-35 Jesus said, “The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started. As you look around right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!
36-38 “The Harvester isn’t waiting. He’s taking his pay, gathering in this grain that’s ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant. That’s the truth of the saying, ‘This one sows, that one harvests.’ I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have walked in on a field worked long and hard by others.”
INSIGHT:
Context is significant for understanding the meaning of a passage in Scripture. The context for today’s passage gives some eye-raising information to the original reader. These verses follow the story of the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, a people-group the Israelites hated.
Jesus’s words “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35) follow John’s statement that the people “came out of the town and made their way toward him” (v. 30). In other words, Jesus was telling the disciples that God’s harvest of people was right in front of them and from a group they would have least expected.
This is partly why Jesus says we reap what we have not worked for. The disciples had not worked for the harvest of Samaritans; indeed, they probably never would have dreamed of working for such a harvest. But our God is a great gardener and He grows fruit where we cannot.
How can you express your trust in God to bring a harvest where there doesn’t seem to be one coming? J.R. Hudberg
Ripe for Harvest
By Amy Boucher Pye
Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. John 4:35
In late summer, we went for a walk in the New Forest in England and had fun picking the blackberries that grew in the wild while watching the horses frolicking nearby. As I enjoyed the bounty of the sweet fruit planted by others perhaps many years before, I thought of Jesus’s words to His disciples: “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for” (John 4:38).
I love the generosity of God’s kingdom reflected in those words. He lets us enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labors, such as when we share our love for Jesus with a friend whose family—unbeknown to us—has been praying for her for years. I also love the implied limits of Jesus’s words, for we may plant seeds that we will never harvest but someone else may. Therefore, we can rest in the tasks before us, not being hoodwinked into thinking that we are responsible for the outcomes. God’s work, after all, doesn’t depend on us. He has all of the resources for a bountiful harvest, and we are privileged to play a role in it.
God, may I be alert to the opportunities to share Your good news.
I wonder what fields ready for harvest are before you? Before me? May we heed Jesus’s loving instruction: “Open your eyes and look at the fields!” (v. 35).
Creator God, thank You for Your great generosity in entrusting us to do Your work. May I be alert to the opportunities to share Your good news.
We can reap what others have sown.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
“I Indeed. . . But He”
I indeed baptize you with water…but He…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. —Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, “I indeed…but He…”? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more— but He begins right there— He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin— it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you….” The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
“I indeed” was this in the past, “but He” came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Lighting Up At The End Of The Game - #7987
As a New York Knicks basketball fan, I've had some victories and some play-off games to cheer for. But, oh yeah, I've had my share of disappointments. And too many of them came at the hands of one particular opponent some years ago when we were living in the New York area. It was a player named Reggie Miller. He had done more to stop my team than just about anybody I could think of because something happened to this man in a close game, when there was suddenly just a minute or two left. He was like on fire! He may or may not have had lots of points earlier in the game, but somehow – boom! - save your best for last. With time running out, Reggie suddenly became a scoring machine, making fantastic shots, often scoring enough points to send my team home for the season. Any player is a powerful force when he knows the end is near and lights up to make a difference!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lighting Up At The End Of The Game."
You may be at a point in your "game of life" where you feel as if most of the game is behind you. You've scored just about all the points you're going to score. You're just sort of coasting from here to the end of the game. Excuse me, that is no way to finish your game!
Consider Caleb from our word for today from the Word of God. One of those 12 scouts Moses sent ahead to check out the Promised Land before the Jews were to enter it. Ten came back saying, "Giants there! No way!" Two came back saying, "God is with us! Way!" But because of the unbelief of the people, a whole generation wandered in the wilderness for more than 40 years until all the adults of that unbelieving generation were dead-except those two believers, Joshua and Caleb. Now, with the new generation taking the Promised Land, Caleb is 40 years older than his first visit there. So is he ready to hang up his sneakers or sandals and call it a game? Nope!
Here it is. Joshua 14:10, "So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said." Not bad for an 85 year old dude, huh?
Here is one of God's players who is near the end of his game-but he is ready to light up the scoreboard. He say, "Give me that mountain! I'll take on those giants as if they're in the way of what God wants!" That's the kind of fourth quarter players God's looking for! Yes, your body may slow down, your energy may not be what it once was, but you aren't dead yet! God wouldn't be leaving you here if He still didn't have work for you to do for Him, lives for you to touch, a difference for you to make! In the Holy Spirit's great outpouring just before Jesus returns, God says in Acts 2:17, "Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams."
Maybe you've allowed yourself to slip into a survival mentality, or maybe you've become self-absorbed or self-pitying. In the fourth quarter, some people just settle into a reward mindset. "Well, I've worked hard all these years. I'll just settle back and relax now. It's time just to reward myself for what I did in the first three quarters of the game." Wait a minute! The game isn't over yet! We'll rest in heaven. We'll get rewarded in heaven. But, for now, we can't waste any of the all-too-few days that we have left to serve Christ. As the Apostle Paul neared his finish line, he said he was "poured out like a drink offering." He wanted to cross the finish line having given so much for his Master that he had nothing left when he collapsed into Jesus' arms! Don't you want to do that?
That's the kind of fourth-quarter heroes God is looking for. So make up your mind that you're going to finish your game well. For, as Amy Carmichael said, "We will have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only a few short hours to win them." And we are in those few short hours.
There is a correlation between the way you feel about yourself and the way you feel about others. If you are at peace with yourself you will get along with others. The converse is also true. If you don’t like yourself, if you are ashamed, embarrassed, or angry, other people are going to know it. Unless the cycle is interrupted!
Which takes us to one of the kindest verses in the Bible. Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Accept my teachings and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives” (Matthew 11:28-29).
“Come to me,” the verse reads! Let Christ be kind to you…and as you do, you’ll find it easier to be kind to others.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 8
1-14 These are the family heads and those who signed up to go up with me from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes the king:
From the family of Phinehas: Gershom
Family of Ithamar: Daniel
Family of David: Hattush
Family of Shecaniah
Family of Parosh: Zechariah, and with him 150 men signed up
Family of Pahath-Moab: Eliehoenai son of Zerahiah, and 200 men
Family of Zattu: Shecaniah son of Jahaziel, and 300 men
Family of Adin: Ebed son of Jonathan, and 50 men
Family of Elam: Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and 70 men
Family of Shephatiah: Zebadiah son of Michael, and 80 men
Family of Joab: Obadiah son of Jehiel, and 218 men
Family of Bani: Shelomith son of Josiphiah, and 160 men
Family of Bebai: Zechariah son of Bebai, and 28 men
Family of Azgad: Johanan son of Hakkatan, and 110 men
Family of Adonikam (bringing up the rear): their names were Eliphelet, Jeuel, Shemaiah, and 60 men
Family of Bigvai: Uthai and Zaccur, and 70 men.
15-17 I gathered them together at the canal that runs to Ahava. We camped there three days. I looked them over and found that they were all laymen and priests but no Levites. So I sent for the leaders Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, and for the teachers Joiarib and Elnathan. I then sent them to Iddo, who is head of the town of Casiphia, and told them what to say to Iddo and his relatives who lived there in Casiphia: “Send us ministers for The Temple of God.”
18-20 Well, the generous hand of our God was on us, and they brought back to us a wise man from the family of Mahli son of Levi, the son of Israel. His name was Sherebiah. With sons and brothers they numbered eighteen. They also brought Hashabiah and Jeshaiah of the family of Merari, with brothers and their sons, another twenty. And then there were 220 temple servants, descendants of the temple servants that David and the princes had assigned to help the Levites in their work. They were all signed up by name.
21-22 I proclaimed a fast there beside the Ahava Canal, a fast to humble ourselves before our God and pray for wise guidance for our journey—all our people and possessions. I was embarrassed to ask the king for a cavalry bodyguard to protect us from bandits on the road. We had just told the king, “Our God lovingly looks after all those who seek him, but turns away in disgust from those who leave him.”
23 So we fasted and prayed about these concerns. And he listened.
24-27 Then I picked twelve of the leading priests—Sherebiah and Hashabiah with ten of their brothers. I weighed out for them the silver, the gold, the vessels, and the offerings for The Temple of our God that the king, his advisors, and all the Israelites had given:
25 tons of silver
100 vessels of silver valued at three and three-quarter tons of gold
20 gold bowls weighing eighteen and a half pounds
2 vessels of bright red copper, as valuable as gold.
28-29 I said to them, “You are holy to God and these vessels are holy. The silver and gold are Freewill-Offerings to the God of your ancestors. Guard them with your lives until you’re able to weigh them out in a secure place in The Temple of our God for the priests and Levites and family heads who are in charge in Jerusalem.”
30 The priests and Levites took charge of all that had been weighed out to them, and prepared to deliver it to Jerusalem to The Temple of our God.
31 We left the Ahava Canal on the twelfth day of the first month to travel to Jerusalem. God was with us all the way and kept us safe from bandits and highwaymen.
32-34 We arrived in Jerusalem and waited there three days. On the fourth day the silver and gold and vessels were weighed out in The Temple of our God into the hands of Meremoth son of Uriah, the priest. Eleazar son of Phinehas was there with him, also the Levites Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui. Everything was counted and weighed and the totals recorded.
35 When they arrived, the exiles, now returned from captivity, offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings to the God of Israel:
12 bulls, representing all Israel
96 rams
77 lambs
12 he-goats as an Absolution-Offering.
All of this was sacrificed as a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God.
36 They also delivered the king’s orders to the king’s provincial administration assigned to the land beyond the Euphrates. They, in turn, gave their support to the people and The Temple of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Read: John 4:35–38
34-35 Jesus said, “The food that keeps me going is that I do the will of the One who sent me, finishing the work he started. As you look around right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These Samaritan fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!
36-38 “The Harvester isn’t waiting. He’s taking his pay, gathering in this grain that’s ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant. That’s the truth of the saying, ‘This one sows, that one harvests.’ I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have walked in on a field worked long and hard by others.”
INSIGHT:
Context is significant for understanding the meaning of a passage in Scripture. The context for today’s passage gives some eye-raising information to the original reader. These verses follow the story of the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, a people-group the Israelites hated.
Jesus’s words “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35) follow John’s statement that the people “came out of the town and made their way toward him” (v. 30). In other words, Jesus was telling the disciples that God’s harvest of people was right in front of them and from a group they would have least expected.
This is partly why Jesus says we reap what we have not worked for. The disciples had not worked for the harvest of Samaritans; indeed, they probably never would have dreamed of working for such a harvest. But our God is a great gardener and He grows fruit where we cannot.
How can you express your trust in God to bring a harvest where there doesn’t seem to be one coming? J.R. Hudberg
Ripe for Harvest
By Amy Boucher Pye
Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. John 4:35
In late summer, we went for a walk in the New Forest in England and had fun picking the blackberries that grew in the wild while watching the horses frolicking nearby. As I enjoyed the bounty of the sweet fruit planted by others perhaps many years before, I thought of Jesus’s words to His disciples: “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for” (John 4:38).
I love the generosity of God’s kingdom reflected in those words. He lets us enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labors, such as when we share our love for Jesus with a friend whose family—unbeknown to us—has been praying for her for years. I also love the implied limits of Jesus’s words, for we may plant seeds that we will never harvest but someone else may. Therefore, we can rest in the tasks before us, not being hoodwinked into thinking that we are responsible for the outcomes. God’s work, after all, doesn’t depend on us. He has all of the resources for a bountiful harvest, and we are privileged to play a role in it.
God, may I be alert to the opportunities to share Your good news.
I wonder what fields ready for harvest are before you? Before me? May we heed Jesus’s loving instruction: “Open your eyes and look at the fields!” (v. 35).
Creator God, thank You for Your great generosity in entrusting us to do Your work. May I be alert to the opportunities to share Your good news.
We can reap what others have sown.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
“I Indeed. . . But He”
I indeed baptize you with water…but He…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. —Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, “I indeed…but He…”? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more— but He begins right there— He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin— it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you….” The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
“I indeed” was this in the past, “but He” came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Lighting Up At The End Of The Game - #7987
As a New York Knicks basketball fan, I've had some victories and some play-off games to cheer for. But, oh yeah, I've had my share of disappointments. And too many of them came at the hands of one particular opponent some years ago when we were living in the New York area. It was a player named Reggie Miller. He had done more to stop my team than just about anybody I could think of because something happened to this man in a close game, when there was suddenly just a minute or two left. He was like on fire! He may or may not have had lots of points earlier in the game, but somehow – boom! - save your best for last. With time running out, Reggie suddenly became a scoring machine, making fantastic shots, often scoring enough points to send my team home for the season. Any player is a powerful force when he knows the end is near and lights up to make a difference!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lighting Up At The End Of The Game."
You may be at a point in your "game of life" where you feel as if most of the game is behind you. You've scored just about all the points you're going to score. You're just sort of coasting from here to the end of the game. Excuse me, that is no way to finish your game!
Consider Caleb from our word for today from the Word of God. One of those 12 scouts Moses sent ahead to check out the Promised Land before the Jews were to enter it. Ten came back saying, "Giants there! No way!" Two came back saying, "God is with us! Way!" But because of the unbelief of the people, a whole generation wandered in the wilderness for more than 40 years until all the adults of that unbelieving generation were dead-except those two believers, Joshua and Caleb. Now, with the new generation taking the Promised Land, Caleb is 40 years older than his first visit there. So is he ready to hang up his sneakers or sandals and call it a game? Nope!
Here it is. Joshua 14:10, "So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said." Not bad for an 85 year old dude, huh?
Here is one of God's players who is near the end of his game-but he is ready to light up the scoreboard. He say, "Give me that mountain! I'll take on those giants as if they're in the way of what God wants!" That's the kind of fourth quarter players God's looking for! Yes, your body may slow down, your energy may not be what it once was, but you aren't dead yet! God wouldn't be leaving you here if He still didn't have work for you to do for Him, lives for you to touch, a difference for you to make! In the Holy Spirit's great outpouring just before Jesus returns, God says in Acts 2:17, "Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams."
Maybe you've allowed yourself to slip into a survival mentality, or maybe you've become self-absorbed or self-pitying. In the fourth quarter, some people just settle into a reward mindset. "Well, I've worked hard all these years. I'll just settle back and relax now. It's time just to reward myself for what I did in the first three quarters of the game." Wait a minute! The game isn't over yet! We'll rest in heaven. We'll get rewarded in heaven. But, for now, we can't waste any of the all-too-few days that we have left to serve Christ. As the Apostle Paul neared his finish line, he said he was "poured out like a drink offering." He wanted to cross the finish line having given so much for his Master that he had nothing left when he collapsed into Jesus' arms! Don't you want to do that?
That's the kind of fourth-quarter heroes God is looking for. So make up your mind that you're going to finish your game well. For, as Amy Carmichael said, "We will have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only a few short hours to win them." And we are in those few short hours.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Esther 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD HAS NOT LEFT YOU ADRIFT
Spiritual life comes from the Spirit! (John 3:6). Your parents may have given you genes, but God gives you grace. Your parents may be responsible for your body, but God has taken charge of your soul. You may get your looks from your mother, but you get eternal life from your Father, your heavenly Father.
God is willing to give you what your family didn’t. Didn’t have a good dad? God will be your Father. The Scripture says, “Through God you are a son; and, if you are a son, then you are certainly an heir” (Galatians 4:7 Phillips).
Didn’t have a good role model? Try God. He has not left you adrift on a sea of heredity. The past does not have to be your prison. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take. Choose well! Choose God!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 10
1-2 King Xerxes imposed taxes from one end of his empire to the other. For the rest of it, King Xerxes’ extensive accomplishments, along with a detailed account of the brilliance of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, that’s all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia.
3 Mordecai the Jew ranked second in command to King Xerxes. He was popular among the Jews and greatly respected by them. He worked hard for the good of his people; he cared for the peace and prosperity of his race.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 21, 2017
Read: Psalm 46:1–11
A Song of the Sons of Korah
1-3 God is a safe place to hide,
ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city,
this sacred haunt of the Most High.
God lives here, the streets are safe,
God at your service from crack of dawn.
Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,
but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything.”
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
INSIGHT:
Getting away to a quiet place can be a way to settle our thoughts. But sometimes the thought of being alone with our thoughts is uncomfortable. Psalm 46 speaks to us about being quiet in the presence of “the God of Jacob,” who is our fortress. Jacob (later named Israel) was a rascal, a liar, and a fugitive from his family.
Jacob struggled with God and God determined Jacob would know Him (see Gen. 32:22–32). It is through Jacob’s line centuries later that Jesus was born to offer us peace and forgiveness.
What could it mean to be still before God, who desired to lovingly father people like Jacob and who desires to be in intimate relationship with each of us? Mart DeHaan
Be Still
By David C. McCasland
The Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46:11
“We’ve created more information in the last five years than in all of human history before it, and it’s coming at us all the time” (Daniel Levitin, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload). “In a sense,” Levitin says, “we become addicted to the hyperstimulation.” The constant barrage of news and knowledge can dominate our minds. In today’s environment of media bombardment, it becomes increasingly difficult to find time to be quiet, to think, and to pray.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God,” reminding us of the necessity to take time to focus on the Lord. Many people find that a “quiet time” is an essential part of each day—a time to read the Bible, pray, and consider the goodness and greatness of God.
Each day we need to be still and listen to the Lord.
When we, like the writer of Psalm 46, experience the reality that “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (v. 1), it drives our fear away (v. 2), shifts our focus from the world’s turmoil to God’s peace, and creates a quiet confidence that our Lord is in control (v. 10).
No matter how chaotic the world may become around us, we can find quietness and strength in our heavenly Father’s love and power.
Heavenly Father, we bring our noisy lives and our cluttered minds to You so that we can learn to be still and know that You are God.
Each day we need to be still and listen to the Lord.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 21, 2017
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
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 21, 2017
How to Have a Million-Dollar Life - #7986
I haven't bought a baseball bat for a while, but I know you can buy one that's cheap and may not last long or one that costs a little more and last longer. But a million-dollar baseball bat? That's a little out of my price range. And lest you think I've lost it, not long ago a massive 46-ounce Louisville Slugger bat sold at auction for $1.26 million dollars! What in the world could possibly make a simple baseball bat worth that much to anyone? Who used it. It was the bat used by Babe Ruth in the first baseball game in the new Yankee Stadium in 1923. In the third inning, the Babe blasted a home run right into the right field bleachers, and somebody just laid down over a million bucks for the bat he used.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Have a Million-Dollar Life."
It was just a piece of wood until someone important used it to do something important. That's what gave that bat such great value. And that's what gives ordinary humans like you and me a whole new value-being used by the most important person in the universe to do something He considers important. An ordinary life is never quite ordinary again once that life has been used by Almighty God.
And His choice of the person He will use is not based on the things most people look for. God doesn't care about charisma, or credentials, or connections, or cash. He's looking for character. He's a holy God, and He can only use holy instruments; people who keep themselves clean for His service.
Paul paints a picture of two kinds of believers-one useful to the Lord and one of little use to Him-in 2 Timothy 2, beginning with verse 15, our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved." (P.S.: Missionary martyr Jim Elliot said the only degree he really wanted was his A. U. G. degree-Approved Unto God.) The verse goes on to say, "a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth... In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble." Even our house has some things we use for throwing away trash and others that we use to serve special people for special occasions.
So what do I have to do to have the honor; the incredible value of being someone the High King of Heaven can use? "If a man cleanses himself," the Bible says, "he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work." Man, those are beautiful words, "useful to the Master." Just like you or me going to the kitchen to find a glass to drink from, God is looking for someone who's clean to use. And He doesn't find very many. What a powerful reason for you to keep your heart and your mind pure, to repent of the junk you've been hanging onto, to meet with Jesus daily for that day's tune-up, to aspire to be, as Robert Murray McCheyne said, "as holy as a saved sinner can be." You'll be God's man, you'll be God's woman, through whom God's work will be done in people's lives. That temptation, that compromise can't possibly be worth losing out on a destiny like this!
The beautiful thing is that anybody can qualify to be used by God. It's your passionate purity, your total surrender to be used totally for His purposes that qualifies you. You've abandoned your dreams for your life for His dreams for your life. They're so much bigger and so much better than yours. And the greatest legacy of your life will be to join Him in the rescue mission that changes people's eternities from hell to heaven. He's inviting you to join Him in that rescue mission for which He died.
Make yourself available to the Lord of the universe and keep yourself clean for Him. When He picks up a life to use it, it takes on a meaning and a significance that nothing on earth can even get close to. And in God's hands, your life can be a holy home run!
Spiritual life comes from the Spirit! (John 3:6). Your parents may have given you genes, but God gives you grace. Your parents may be responsible for your body, but God has taken charge of your soul. You may get your looks from your mother, but you get eternal life from your Father, your heavenly Father.
God is willing to give you what your family didn’t. Didn’t have a good dad? God will be your Father. The Scripture says, “Through God you are a son; and, if you are a son, then you are certainly an heir” (Galatians 4:7 Phillips).
Didn’t have a good role model? Try God. He has not left you adrift on a sea of heredity. The past does not have to be your prison. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take. Choose well! Choose God!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 10
1-2 King Xerxes imposed taxes from one end of his empire to the other. For the rest of it, King Xerxes’ extensive accomplishments, along with a detailed account of the brilliance of Mordecai, whom the king had promoted, that’s all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia.
3 Mordecai the Jew ranked second in command to King Xerxes. He was popular among the Jews and greatly respected by them. He worked hard for the good of his people; he cared for the peace and prosperity of his race.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 21, 2017
Read: Psalm 46:1–11
A Song of the Sons of Korah
1-3 God is a safe place to hide,
ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city,
this sacred haunt of the Most High.
God lives here, the streets are safe,
God at your service from crack of dawn.
Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,
but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything.”
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
INSIGHT:
Getting away to a quiet place can be a way to settle our thoughts. But sometimes the thought of being alone with our thoughts is uncomfortable. Psalm 46 speaks to us about being quiet in the presence of “the God of Jacob,” who is our fortress. Jacob (later named Israel) was a rascal, a liar, and a fugitive from his family.
Jacob struggled with God and God determined Jacob would know Him (see Gen. 32:22–32). It is through Jacob’s line centuries later that Jesus was born to offer us peace and forgiveness.
What could it mean to be still before God, who desired to lovingly father people like Jacob and who desires to be in intimate relationship with each of us? Mart DeHaan
Be Still
By David C. McCasland
The Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46:11
“We’ve created more information in the last five years than in all of human history before it, and it’s coming at us all the time” (Daniel Levitin, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload). “In a sense,” Levitin says, “we become addicted to the hyperstimulation.” The constant barrage of news and knowledge can dominate our minds. In today’s environment of media bombardment, it becomes increasingly difficult to find time to be quiet, to think, and to pray.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God,” reminding us of the necessity to take time to focus on the Lord. Many people find that a “quiet time” is an essential part of each day—a time to read the Bible, pray, and consider the goodness and greatness of God.
Each day we need to be still and listen to the Lord.
When we, like the writer of Psalm 46, experience the reality that “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (v. 1), it drives our fear away (v. 2), shifts our focus from the world’s turmoil to God’s peace, and creates a quiet confidence that our Lord is in control (v. 10).
No matter how chaotic the world may become around us, we can find quietness and strength in our heavenly Father’s love and power.
Heavenly Father, we bring our noisy lives and our cluttered minds to You so that we can learn to be still and know that You are God.
Each day we need to be still and listen to the Lord.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 21, 2017
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
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 21, 2017
How to Have a Million-Dollar Life - #7986
I haven't bought a baseball bat for a while, but I know you can buy one that's cheap and may not last long or one that costs a little more and last longer. But a million-dollar baseball bat? That's a little out of my price range. And lest you think I've lost it, not long ago a massive 46-ounce Louisville Slugger bat sold at auction for $1.26 million dollars! What in the world could possibly make a simple baseball bat worth that much to anyone? Who used it. It was the bat used by Babe Ruth in the first baseball game in the new Yankee Stadium in 1923. In the third inning, the Babe blasted a home run right into the right field bleachers, and somebody just laid down over a million bucks for the bat he used.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Have a Million-Dollar Life."
It was just a piece of wood until someone important used it to do something important. That's what gave that bat such great value. And that's what gives ordinary humans like you and me a whole new value-being used by the most important person in the universe to do something He considers important. An ordinary life is never quite ordinary again once that life has been used by Almighty God.
And His choice of the person He will use is not based on the things most people look for. God doesn't care about charisma, or credentials, or connections, or cash. He's looking for character. He's a holy God, and He can only use holy instruments; people who keep themselves clean for His service.
Paul paints a picture of two kinds of believers-one useful to the Lord and one of little use to Him-in 2 Timothy 2, beginning with verse 15, our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved." (P.S.: Missionary martyr Jim Elliot said the only degree he really wanted was his A. U. G. degree-Approved Unto God.) The verse goes on to say, "a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth... In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble." Even our house has some things we use for throwing away trash and others that we use to serve special people for special occasions.
So what do I have to do to have the honor; the incredible value of being someone the High King of Heaven can use? "If a man cleanses himself," the Bible says, "he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work." Man, those are beautiful words, "useful to the Master." Just like you or me going to the kitchen to find a glass to drink from, God is looking for someone who's clean to use. And He doesn't find very many. What a powerful reason for you to keep your heart and your mind pure, to repent of the junk you've been hanging onto, to meet with Jesus daily for that day's tune-up, to aspire to be, as Robert Murray McCheyne said, "as holy as a saved sinner can be." You'll be God's man, you'll be God's woman, through whom God's work will be done in people's lives. That temptation, that compromise can't possibly be worth losing out on a destiny like this!
The beautiful thing is that anybody can qualify to be used by God. It's your passionate purity, your total surrender to be used totally for His purposes that qualifies you. You've abandoned your dreams for your life for His dreams for your life. They're so much bigger and so much better than yours. And the greatest legacy of your life will be to join Him in the rescue mission that changes people's eternities from hell to heaven. He's inviting you to join Him in that rescue mission for which He died.
Make yourself available to the Lord of the universe and keep yourself clean for Him. When He picks up a life to use it, it takes on a meaning and a significance that nothing on earth can even get close to. And in God's hands, your life can be a holy home run!
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