Max Lucado Daily: THE HEART ON TARGET
Jesus’ heart was so focused that his last words were “It is finished.” God wants us to have focused hearts like Jesus. Here are four simple questions to help us stay on course:
1) Am I fitting into God’s Plan? His plan is to save his children, and we are to tell others about the God who loves them.
2) What are my longings? Our assignment is found at the intersection of God’s plan and our pleasures. You are created to serve God in a unique way.
3) What are my abilities? Identify your strengths—and major in them.
4) Am I serving God now? As a young boy, Jesus sensed the call of God. But he went home and learned the family business.
Do the same. Go home, love your family, be a good employee. And get your life on course.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 14
A David Psalm
14 Bilious and bloated, they gas,
“God is gone.”
Their words are poison gas,
fouling the air; they poison
Rivers and skies;
thistles are their cash crop.
2 God sticks his head out of heaven.
He looks around.
He’s looking for someone not stupid—
one man, even, God-expectant,
just one God-ready woman.
3 He comes up empty. A string
of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
follow their fellow.
4 Don’t they know anything,
all these impostors?
Don’t they know
they can’t get away with this—
Treating people like a fast-food meal
over which they’re too busy to pray?
5-6 Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
for God takes the side of victims.
Do you think you can mess
with the dreams of the poor?
You can’t, for God
makes their dreams come true.
7 Is there anyone around to save Israel?
Yes. God is around; God turns life around.
Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
turned-around Israel sings laughter.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 12:1-8
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
Insight
Paul tells us not to “conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind” (Romans 12:2). What is the pattern of this world? Paul doesn’t define it for us, but we gain a hint when he immediately addresses the problem of pride. In verse 3 he says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” Then he emphasizes the need for us to use our God-given gifts to live in unity and community. “We, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (v. 5). God gifts us not so we may glorify ourselves but so that we might serve each other in love. By: Tim Gustafson
Living Sacrifice
I urge you . . . in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1
My great aunt had an exciting job in advertising and traveled between Chicago and New York City. But she chose to give up that career out of love for her parents. They lived in Minnesota and needed to be cared for. Both of her brothers had died young in tragic circumstances and she was her mom and dad’s only remaining child. For her, serving her parents was an expression of her faith.
The apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome urged Christian believers to be “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). He hoped they would extend Christ’s sacrificial love to each other. And he asked them not to think of themselves more highly than they should (v. 3). When they fell into disagreements and division, he called them to lay down their pride, because “in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (v. 5). He yearned that they would show each other sacrificial love.
Each day we have the opportunity to serve others. For instance, we might let someone go ahead of us in a line or we might, like my great aunt, care for someone who is ill. Or maybe we share from our experience as we give another advice and direction. When we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, we honor God. By Amy Boucher Pye
Today's Reflection
Lord Jesus Christ, You humbled Yourself and lay down Your life that I might live. May I never forget this most precious gift of grace and love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me. —Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I’m not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things— things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? “She has done a good work for Me.”
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. “…but perfect love casts out fear…” once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, “Am I of any use?” and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 21, 2019
No Castaways - #8379
It's hard to imagine a movie that got rave reviews when there were about 45 minutes during which there was just one man on the screen, and he didn't even talk that whole time! Yeah, Tom Hanks pulled it off a few years ago in his blockbuster movie, "Cast Away." It's the story of the lone survivor of a Federal Express plane crash who ends up totally alone on an island. Well alone, except for his one friend-a volleyball he names Wilson. Tom Hanks' character is on that island, marooned and alone, for four years. He's the castaway.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "No Castaways."
You've probably never been marooned on a desert island. But you might know pretty well how it feels. In a world of bad relationships, superficial relationships, broken relationships, a lot of people know the feeling of being, well can we say, emotionally marooned, abandoned, maybe even discarded. Because of some of what you've been through, maybe you feel like the castaway.
But your days on that island may be almost over. In fact, it could be that all your failed, all your frustrating relationships have actually been preparing you to experience the central relationship you were made for. The one relationship that is so permanent and so secure that it even redefines your need for love, and it sets you free for healthier relationships all around.
Anyone who has ever felt like an emotional castaway needs to hear the fabulous promise of Jesus Christ in our word for today from the Word of God. In John 14:18, Jesus says to all those who belong to Him, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." This is the same Savior who says, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). He's the One who promised, according to the Bible, "The one that comes to me, I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37).
That's it: unconditional love, unconditionally guaranteed by the One with more love to give than anyone in the world. And that's the kind of anchor love that your heart is so ready for, a kind of dependable love that maybe you've almost given up on, but a love that's guaranteed by the man who loved you so much that He died for you.
The Bible actually says that you and I were "created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). Maybe you've never given yourself to Jesus until now. It's all the hurt of those other relationships that has softened your heart and made you realize how much you need the One who died to pay for all the wrong things you've ever done. We're not talking about a Christian religion here. No religion can love you, no religion can forgive you, be with you every moment of every day, or take you to heaven when you die. Only Jesus can do that.
So this is all about a relationship; a relationship that begins when you respond to this awesome love of Jesus. It begins when you welcome Him into your life, counting on Him and Him alone to remove the wall between you and God. When you do that, the relationship you were created for begins. And from now on, that promise of Jesus can be all about you, "The one that comes to Me I will certainly not cast out."
Why don't you tell Jesus now that the door on your heart is open to Him; that today you want to begin your personal love relationship with Him. You know, if that's something you're ready for, you can say to Him, "Lord Jesus, I'm sorry for running my own life. I am sorry for hijacking it from you. And now I believe that the death penalty for my sin was paid for by your death on the cross. I thank you that you love me that much, that you came back from the dead, that you're alive, and I'm yours today, Jesus, from today on. When you pray that with all your heart, your relationship with Him has begun and will be there forever.
Are you ready for that? You tell Him that right now. I think our website would be a help to you right now. It's there to support you at this crossroads moment of your life with the information you need to be sure you belong to Him. Go there - ANewStory.com. That's the website.
Look, you've lived long enough on that lonely island haven't you? It's time to meet the one person who will never, never leave you. If you do, you have just spent your last day alone.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Psalm 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: PEOPLE ARE WATCHING
A vibrant, shining face is the mark of one who has stood in God’s presence. After speaking to God, Moses had to cover his face with a veil.
But not only does God change the face of those who worship; he changes those who watch us worship. Paul told the Corinthian church to worship in such a way that if an unbeliever entered, he would find the secrets of his heart revealed; and would fall down on his face and worship God.
Seekers may not understand all that happens in a house of worship. They may not understand the meaning of a song or the significance of communion. But they know joy when they see it. And when they see your face changed, they may want to see God’s face. People, including your family, are watching. Believe me. They are watching.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 13
A David Psalm
13 1-2 Long enough, God—
you’ve ignored me long enough.
I’ve looked at the back of your head
long enough. Long enough
I’ve carried this ton of trouble,
lived with a stomach full of pain.
Long enough my arrogant enemies
have looked down their noses at me.
3-4 Take a good look at me, God, my God;
I want to look life in the eye,
So no enemy can get the best of me
or laugh when I fall on my face.
5-6 I’ve thrown myself headlong into your arms—
I’m celebrating your rescue.
I’m singing at the top of my lungs,
I’m so full of answered prayers.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Colossians 1:9-12
Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.
Insight
In Colossians 1:9–12, Paul strings together a beautiful chain of cause and effect ideas where one thing leads to another, which leads to another. The clue that this is what Paul is doing is in the words “so that.” Twice he uses this phrase to connect what he is saying to his previous statement (vv. 10, 11). His progression of thought goes like this: Knowing God’s will through the Spirit (v. 9) leads to making decisions and acting in ways that honor God; knowing Him more (v. 10) leads to endurance, patience, and thanksgiving (vv. 11–12). In this progression we can see how God plans for our growth—one thing builds on another. But it seems significant that this list ends with thanksgiving. The ultimate result of this progression is joyful thanks to God.
By: J.R. Hudberg
Send It in a Letter
Since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. Colossians 1:9
Like most four-year-olds, Ruby loved to run, sing, dance, and play. But she started complaining about pain in her knees. Ruby’s parents took her in for tests. The results were shocking—a diagnosis of cancer, stage 4 neuroblastoma. Ruby was in trouble. She was quickly admitted to the hospital.
Ruby’s hospital stay lingered on, spilling over into the Christmas season, a hard time to be away from home. One of Ruby’s nurses came up with the idea to place a mailbox outside her room so family could send letters full of prayers and encouragement to her. Then the plea went out on Facebook, and that’s when the volume of mail coming in from friends and complete strangers surprised everyone, most of all Ruby. With each letter received (more than 100,000 total), Ruby grew a little more encouraged, and she finally got to go home.
Paul’s letter to the people at Colossae was exactly that—a letter (Colossians 1:2). Words penned on a page that carried hopes for continued fruitfulness and knowledge and strength and endurance and patience (vv. 10–11). Can you imagine what a dose of good medicine such words were to the faithful at Colossae? Just knowing that someone was praying nonstop for them strengthened them to stay steady in their faith in Christ Jesus.
Our words of encouragement can dramatically help others in need. By John Blase
Today's Reflection
How have others’ words encouraged me? What opportunities do I have to give someone else the “letter” of encouragement they need?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here. —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: “Don’t sit or stand there, just go!”
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, “Come aside by yourselves…” then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time— you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The emphasis to-day is placed on the furtherance of an organization; the note is, “We must keep this thing going.” If we are in God’s order the thing will go; if we are not in His order, it won’t. Conformed to His Image, 357 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
The Missing Messenger - #8378
I used to tell our kids, "You don't have to go to a party. Carry the party inside you wherever you go!" Our five-year-old grandson never heard that, but I think he got the idea. He could find a way to enjoy himself in just about any situation, with friends or alone, with his toys, or better yet as far as he was concerned, with just like the everyday stuff he found. I remember he and I were in my study, a few rooms away from the living room where his three-year-old brother and his Mommy were. Little brother decided to check out what big brother and I were doing, and big brother had an idea. His brother could be a messenger. So our five-year-old started writing little messages to his mother, which he then rolled up and dispatched his little brother to deliver. Mommy got the idea, and so she would write back an answer to every message. The shuttle went back and forth three times, I think. Big brother then wrote another message, but this time the messenger didn't show up. He had clocked out. So the message never got delivered.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "The Missing Messenger."
Jesus has a message that He wants delivered to some people you know-some people you see all the time. The price of His message not getting through to them could be an awful eternity. He's counting on you to be the messenger.
He makes that clear in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 5:19-20, where the Bible says, "We are Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are His ambassador to the place where you live, the place where you work, the place you go to school, the place you "recreate," the place you shop.
When the President appoints an ambassador to a particular country, he's counting on his ambassador to deliver his messages, right, that he wants communicated. Whether you realize it or not, you've been assigned by the highest authority in the universe, by Jesus himself, to deliver His message to the folks around you. And that message is life-or-death information. But as our grandson found out with his little brother, when the messenger dies, the message dies. And in the case of Jesus' message about His death for our sins, people you know may die if you don't deliver it.
That's the awful picture of messenger failure in Ezekiel 33:7. It says, "I have made you a watchman...give them warning from Me...When I say to the wicked" (Today that's anyone who has not had their sin forgiven by giving themselves to Jesus, and you know people like that.) "When I say to the wicked you will surely die,' and you do not speak to warn him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood." Blood on our hands because of the silence of our lips. Don't let that happen to you. Don't let that happen to the people God's counting on you to tell about His Son. Whatever fear of what might happen if you told them about Jesus, could it possibly be as fearful as what will happen if you don't tell them?
Jack Phillips was the radioman for the Titanic. Two hours before the Titanic's fatal collision with an iceberg, Phillips got this radio message from another ship, describing the coordinates of the exact ice field that later doomed the Titanic. But instead of delivering that information to the captain, he stuck it on a spindle to deliver it later. That mistake cost him his life and the lives of 1,500 passengers that night. All because the life-or-death message he had was never delivered.
Don't make that mistake with the message Jesus has given to you to be delivered. Don't let your silence, don't let your delay cost them heaven. His message is in your hands.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Psalm 12, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: PREPARING FOR WORSHIP
Do you prepare for church worship? We’re sadly casual when it comes to meeting God. Suppose you were invited to a Sunday morning breakfast at the White House? How would you spend Saturday night? Would you think about your questions and requests? Should we prepare any less for an encounter with the Holy God?
Come to worship prepared to worship. Pray and read the Word before you come, and come expecting God to speak. Then you’ll discover the purpose of worship—to change the face of the worshiper. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “Our faces, then, are not covered. We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him.” God wipes away our tears, softens our furrowed brows and touches our cheeks. He changes our faces as we worship.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 12
A David Psalm
12 1-2 Quick, God, I need your helping hand!
The last decent person just went down,
All the friends I depended on gone.
Everyone talks in lie language;
Lies slide off their oily lips.
They doubletalk with forked tongues.
3-4 Slice their lips off their faces! Pull
The braggart tongues from their mouths!
I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything!
Our lips manage the world.”
5 Into the hovels of the poor,
Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks:
“I’ve had enough; I’m on my way
To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.”
6-8 God’s words are pure words,
Pure silver words refined seven times
In the fires of his word-kiln,
Pure on earth as well as in heaven.
God, keep us safe from their lies,
From the wicked who stalk us with lies,
From the wicked who collect honors
For their wonderful lies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Proverbs 15:30-33
A twinkle in the eye means joy in the heart,
and good news makes you feel fit as a fiddle.
31 Listen to good advice if you want to live well,
an honored guest among wise men and women.
32 An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny;
an obedient, God-willed life is spacious.
33 Fear-of-God is a school in skilled living—
first you learn humility, then you experience glory.
Insight
In Proverbs, the righteous are the wise, and the foolish are the wicked (for example, see 10:1–3). A wise person is one who obeys God and His Word, thus avoiding moral pitfalls and failures. In contrast, a fool is one who says, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Solomon contrasts the wise and the foolish (Proverbs 10–15), comparing their attitudes, actions, and speech. Proverbs 15 describes the wise person as one who is discerning (v. 21), seeks godly counsel (v. 22), speaks graciously (v. 23), lives cautiously (v. 24), is humble (v. 25), pure (v. 26), honest (v. 27), self-controlled (v. 28), prayerful (v. 29), teachable (vv. 31–32), and fears God (v. 33). The foundation for such a godly life is stated at the beginning of Proverbs in 1:7, repeated in 9:10, and reiterated again in 15:33: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. By: K. T. Sim
Shelve Them and Move On
Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise. Proverbs 15:31
I’m reminded of some wise advice a radio broadcaster friend once gave me. Early on in his career, as my friend struggled to know how to deal with both criticism and praise, he felt that God was encouraging him to shelve both. What’s the essence of what he took to heart? Learn what you can from criticism and accept praise. Then shelve both and humbly move on in God’s grace and power.
Criticism and praise stir in us powerful emotions that, if left unchecked, can lead to either self-loathing or an overinflated ego. In Proverbs we read of the benefits of encouragement and wise counsel: “Good news gives health to the bones. . . .Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding” (15:30, 32).
If we’re on the receiving end of a rebuke, may we choose to be sharpened by it. Proverbs states, “Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise” (v. 31). And if we’re blessed with words of praise, may we be refreshed and filled with gratitude. As we walk humbly with God, He can help us learn from both criticism and praise, shelve them, and then move on in Him (v. 33). By Ruth O'Reilly-Smith
Today's Reflection
Father God, thank You for the gift of praise and criticism. As I humbly surrender to You, may I grow and be sharpened by both.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine… —Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet. He then says to them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer’s body has become “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When you are joyful, be joyful; when you are sad, be sad. If God has given you a sweet cup, don’t make it bitter; and if He has given you a bitter cup, don’t try and make it sweet; take things as they come. Shade of His Hand, 1226 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Hummingbird Wars - #8377
My wife and I always enjoyed the helicopter of the animal kingdom. Yep, the hummingbird. On our vacation we hung out a hummingbird feeder and we filled it with this sweet red liquid that they love and we sat down on the porch and just sort of swung back and forth, and settled back to watch those cute little guys come to drink. Turns out they're not as cute as we thought. No sooner would one land on the feeder and begin to drink, another hummingbird would swoop down and knock him off. Then another bird would swoop down and knock that bird off. Eventually, we had as many as five hummingbirds at a time hovering and darting around that feeder fighting with each other, dive-bombing each other. When one managed to finally win a spot on the feeder, he couldn't even enjoy what was there; he was so busy looking around for his next attacker. As the provider of all these goodies, I was frustrated. I was irritated. These dumb birds were so busy fighting over it, they couldn't enjoy it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "Hummingbird Wars."
As we watched those hummingbirds, I said to my wife, "Honey, I think I know how we Christians must make God feel." Could it be that we're attacking each other so much, we're so busy positioning ourselves, we can't even enjoy what the Father's prepared for us? Our word for today from the Word of God is from Psalm 133:1. "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore." God blesses where His kids have laid aside turf and strife and ego and are coming together in unity. He wants your church, your family, your organization, your marriage to be together - not divided. He has so much prepared for you, so much He wants to do for you and through you.
It's wrapped up in those words "His blessing," but we displease Him so much. When He watches us getting into our little groups, attacking each other, judging each other, there's just like so much ego, so much pride often concealed under righteous-sounding Christian words and causes. We let God's work be poisoned by competition as we try to get the best spot on the feeder for our ministry, our group, our advancement. And while we're protecting our doctrinal and lifestyle purity (which we should), we slander, we condemn, we verbally assassinate those we perceive as "them." We put our way, we put our turf above the greater work of the kingdom and we lose the very love by which Jesus said people would recognize Him and recognize us.
Something is very wrong at the feeding place of God. There's too much fighting and we are missing what the Father has prepared for us. It's time we ask our Lord for the humility, the gentleness, the love, and the self-sacrifice that He always showed. He was the Son of God.
When I was watching those hummingbird wars, I really felt I was watching a heartbreaking picture of much of God's family. And maybe I was feeling in some infinitesimal way, the disappointment and the pain that our Heavenly Father must feel. It's time we live together in unity isn't it? For there is where the Lord bestows His blessing.
Do you prepare for church worship? We’re sadly casual when it comes to meeting God. Suppose you were invited to a Sunday morning breakfast at the White House? How would you spend Saturday night? Would you think about your questions and requests? Should we prepare any less for an encounter with the Holy God?
Come to worship prepared to worship. Pray and read the Word before you come, and come expecting God to speak. Then you’ll discover the purpose of worship—to change the face of the worshiper. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “Our faces, then, are not covered. We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him.” God wipes away our tears, softens our furrowed brows and touches our cheeks. He changes our faces as we worship.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 12
A David Psalm
12 1-2 Quick, God, I need your helping hand!
The last decent person just went down,
All the friends I depended on gone.
Everyone talks in lie language;
Lies slide off their oily lips.
They doubletalk with forked tongues.
3-4 Slice their lips off their faces! Pull
The braggart tongues from their mouths!
I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything!
Our lips manage the world.”
5 Into the hovels of the poor,
Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks:
“I’ve had enough; I’m on my way
To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.”
6-8 God’s words are pure words,
Pure silver words refined seven times
In the fires of his word-kiln,
Pure on earth as well as in heaven.
God, keep us safe from their lies,
From the wicked who stalk us with lies,
From the wicked who collect honors
For their wonderful lies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Proverbs 15:30-33
A twinkle in the eye means joy in the heart,
and good news makes you feel fit as a fiddle.
31 Listen to good advice if you want to live well,
an honored guest among wise men and women.
32 An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny;
an obedient, God-willed life is spacious.
33 Fear-of-God is a school in skilled living—
first you learn humility, then you experience glory.
Insight
In Proverbs, the righteous are the wise, and the foolish are the wicked (for example, see 10:1–3). A wise person is one who obeys God and His Word, thus avoiding moral pitfalls and failures. In contrast, a fool is one who says, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Solomon contrasts the wise and the foolish (Proverbs 10–15), comparing their attitudes, actions, and speech. Proverbs 15 describes the wise person as one who is discerning (v. 21), seeks godly counsel (v. 22), speaks graciously (v. 23), lives cautiously (v. 24), is humble (v. 25), pure (v. 26), honest (v. 27), self-controlled (v. 28), prayerful (v. 29), teachable (vv. 31–32), and fears God (v. 33). The foundation for such a godly life is stated at the beginning of Proverbs in 1:7, repeated in 9:10, and reiterated again in 15:33: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. By: K. T. Sim
Shelve Them and Move On
Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise. Proverbs 15:31
I’m reminded of some wise advice a radio broadcaster friend once gave me. Early on in his career, as my friend struggled to know how to deal with both criticism and praise, he felt that God was encouraging him to shelve both. What’s the essence of what he took to heart? Learn what you can from criticism and accept praise. Then shelve both and humbly move on in God’s grace and power.
Criticism and praise stir in us powerful emotions that, if left unchecked, can lead to either self-loathing or an overinflated ego. In Proverbs we read of the benefits of encouragement and wise counsel: “Good news gives health to the bones. . . .Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding” (15:30, 32).
If we’re on the receiving end of a rebuke, may we choose to be sharpened by it. Proverbs states, “Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise” (v. 31). And if we’re blessed with words of praise, may we be refreshed and filled with gratitude. As we walk humbly with God, He can help us learn from both criticism and praise, shelve them, and then move on in Him (v. 33). By Ruth O'Reilly-Smith
Today's Reflection
Father God, thank You for the gift of praise and criticism. As I humbly surrender to You, may I grow and be sharpened by both.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine… —Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet. He then says to them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer’s body has become “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When you are joyful, be joyful; when you are sad, be sad. If God has given you a sweet cup, don’t make it bitter; and if He has given you a bitter cup, don’t try and make it sweet; take things as they come. Shade of His Hand, 1226 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Hummingbird Wars - #8377
My wife and I always enjoyed the helicopter of the animal kingdom. Yep, the hummingbird. On our vacation we hung out a hummingbird feeder and we filled it with this sweet red liquid that they love and we sat down on the porch and just sort of swung back and forth, and settled back to watch those cute little guys come to drink. Turns out they're not as cute as we thought. No sooner would one land on the feeder and begin to drink, another hummingbird would swoop down and knock him off. Then another bird would swoop down and knock that bird off. Eventually, we had as many as five hummingbirds at a time hovering and darting around that feeder fighting with each other, dive-bombing each other. When one managed to finally win a spot on the feeder, he couldn't even enjoy what was there; he was so busy looking around for his next attacker. As the provider of all these goodies, I was frustrated. I was irritated. These dumb birds were so busy fighting over it, they couldn't enjoy it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "Hummingbird Wars."
As we watched those hummingbirds, I said to my wife, "Honey, I think I know how we Christians must make God feel." Could it be that we're attacking each other so much, we're so busy positioning ourselves, we can't even enjoy what the Father's prepared for us? Our word for today from the Word of God is from Psalm 133:1. "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore." God blesses where His kids have laid aside turf and strife and ego and are coming together in unity. He wants your church, your family, your organization, your marriage to be together - not divided. He has so much prepared for you, so much He wants to do for you and through you.
It's wrapped up in those words "His blessing," but we displease Him so much. When He watches us getting into our little groups, attacking each other, judging each other, there's just like so much ego, so much pride often concealed under righteous-sounding Christian words and causes. We let God's work be poisoned by competition as we try to get the best spot on the feeder for our ministry, our group, our advancement. And while we're protecting our doctrinal and lifestyle purity (which we should), we slander, we condemn, we verbally assassinate those we perceive as "them." We put our way, we put our turf above the greater work of the kingdom and we lose the very love by which Jesus said people would recognize Him and recognize us.
Something is very wrong at the feeding place of God. There's too much fighting and we are missing what the Father has prepared for us. It's time we ask our Lord for the humility, the gentleness, the love, and the self-sacrifice that He always showed. He was the Son of God.
When I was watching those hummingbird wars, I really felt I was watching a heartbreaking picture of much of God's family. And maybe I was feeling in some infinitesimal way, the disappointment and the pain that our Heavenly Father must feel. It's time we live together in unity isn't it? For there is where the Lord bestows His blessing.
Monday, February 18, 2019
Psalm 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: PRACTICING THE PRESENCE OF GOD
How do I detect God’s unseen hand on my shoulder and his inaudible voice in my ear? Give God your waking thoughts. Before you face the day, face the Father. Psalm 5:3 says, “Every morning, I tell you what I need, and I wait for your answer.”
Give God your waiting thoughts. Spend time with him in silence.
Give God your whispering thoughts. During your lifetime, you could spend six months at stoplights and eight months opening junk mail. Give these moments to God. Simple phrases such as “Thank you, Father,” can turn a commute into a pilgrimage.
Give God your waning thoughts. Conclude the day as you began it– talking to God. If you fall asleep as you pray, don’t worry. What better place to doze off than in the arms of your Father.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 9
A David Psalm
9 1-2 I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart,
I’m writing the book on your wonders.
I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy;
I’m singing your song, High God.
3-4 The day my enemies turned tail and ran,
they stumbled on you and fell on their faces.
You took over and set everything right;
when I needed you, you were there, taking charge.
5-6 You blow the whistle on godless nations;
you throw dirty players out of the game,
wipe their names right off the roster.
Enemies disappear from the sidelines,
their reputation trashed,
their names erased from the halls of fame.
7-8 God holds the high center,
he sees and sets the world’s mess right.
He decides what is right for us earthlings,
gives people their just deserts.
9-10 God’s a safe-house for the battered,
a sanctuary during bad times.
The moment you arrive, you relax;
you’re never sorry you knocked.
11-12 Sing your songs to Zion-dwelling God,
tell his stories to everyone you meet:
How he tracks down killers
yet keeps his eye on us,
registers every whimper and moan.
13-14 Be kind to me, God;
I’ve been kicked around long enough.
Once you’ve pulled me back
from the gates of death,
I’ll write the book on Hallelujahs;
on the corner of Main and First
I’ll hold a street meeting;
I’ll be the song leader; we’ll fill the air
with salvation songs.
15-16 They’re trapped, those godless countries,
in the very snares they set,
Their feet all tangled
in the net they spread.
They have no excuse;
the way God works is well-known.
The cunning machinery made by the wicked
has maimed their own hands.
17-20 The wicked bought a one-way
ticket to hell.
No longer will the poor be nameless—
no more humiliation for the humble.
Up, God! Aren’t you fed up with their empty strutting?
Expose these grand pretensions!
Shake them up, God!
Show them how silly they look.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, February 18, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Jonah 4:1-11
Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
3 “So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!”
4 God said, “What do you have to be angry about?”
5 But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
6 God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.
7-8 But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: “I’m better off dead!”
9 Then God said to Jonah, “What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?”
Jonah said, “Plenty of right. It’s made me angry enough to die!”
10-11 God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?”
Insight
Jonah’s reluctance to forgive his enemies is a reminder that the heart of God is bigger than our own.
For more about the story of Jonah, read The Failure of Success at discoveryseries.org/q0720.
Praying and Growing
Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God. Colossians 3:17
When my friend David’s wife developed Alzheimer’s disease, the changes it brought to his life made him bitter. He needed to retire early to care for her; and as the disease progressed, she required increasingly more care.
“I was so angry at God,” he told me. “But the more I prayed about it, the more He showed me my heart and how I had been selfish for most of our marriage.” Tears welled in his eyes as he confessed, “She’s been sick ten years, but God has helped me see things differently. Now, everything I do out of love for her, I also do for Jesus. Caring for her has become the greatest privilege of my life.”
Sometimes God answers our prayers not by giving us what we want but by challenging us to change. When the prophet Jonah was angry because God spared the wicked city of Nineveh from destruction, God caused a plant to shade him from the hot sun (Jonah 4:6). Then He made it wither. When Jonah complained, God answered, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” (vv. 7–9). Jonah, focused only on himself, insisted it was. But God challenged him to think about others and have compassion.
God sometimes uses our prayers in unexpected ways to help us learn and grow. It’s a change we can welcome with open hearts because He wants to transform us with His love. By James Banks
Today's Reflection
Lord Jesus, thank You for helping me grow when I pray. Help me to be sensitive to what You want for my life today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 18, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going. —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do the next thing.” If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, February 18, 2019
Ultimate Security - #8376
A local businessman was in to share with our Ministry Team, and he made a fascinating observation about his family. He's got three children; two are all grown up and in their late 20s. His youngest is just a nine year old girl. He assured us that she wasn't a "mistake." In fact, she was their choice. And he pointed out something the authorities made very clear at the time the adoption went through. There would come a time when he had a major falling out with one of his natural-born children-a time when he would conceivably, as a father, disown that child; even put him out of the will. But not with this girl he was adopting. He was legally committed to never disown her, to never put her out of his will, and to always take care of her. They said, in essence, "When you adopt a child, she's your child forever."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "Ultimate Security."
For my businessman friend, that experience with adoption opened up a whole new world in terms of his personal relationship with God. It could be the same for you. Because adoption plays a central part in whether or not you actually belong to God, whether or not you go to heaven when you die.
Listen to our word for today from the Word of God. The Lord's pulling back the curtain of eternity to let us see this panoramic view of how God has planned and provided for you joining His family. Ephesians 1:4 says this: "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons (or His children) through Jesus Christ...In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." God has had His eye on you before there was a world! And He made a plan to adopt you into His family so you could be with Him forever.
There are few more comforting and more peace-giving words in the English language than this one-secure. But security may be something you've never had much of in your life. You've experienced a lot of conditional love, performance love, but not much love that would be there no matter how unlovable you are. Maybe there have been people or positions or things that were your security blanket but they're gone, and with them, so is your sense of being safe. If you've been disappointed in relationships, if you've been hurt a lot, or if you're just tired of losing what you were hanging onto, then you're ready to be adopted by God.
Remember what the authorities told my friend, "When you adopt a child, she's yours forever." That's the kind of unshakable, unlosable security that God is offering you. Adoptions can be expensive. For God to adopt you, the price was unthinkable-the sacrifice of His one and only Son on the cross. Because there's no way you could be a daughter or son in God's family with all the wrong things you've done. After all, God the Father is perfect. But, as the verse says, God offers forgiveness of sins through the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Your sin was paid for so your sin could be forgiven. And God stands ready to make you His child today.
But only if you want Him to. Only if you'll pin all your hopes on Jesus and what He did on the cross for you. At the moment you give yourself to Jesus, you are adopted into God's family, and you finally belong. You're finally secure. You're finally safe.
You want that? Would you tell Him that right now? And, please, go to our website. It's a support; it's backup for you right now to give you biblical information that will help you know that you've begun this relationship and you've got it forever. That website is ANewStory.com where a new story for your life could begin.
Your lifelong search for a love that you could never lose can end today. God has paid the price to adopt you. His arms are open wide. It's time for you to run into those big old Father's waiting arms, because once you do, He'll never let you go.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Psalm 11, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: He Knows Your Needs
Jesus calls us to calmness with this challenge from Matthew 6:32-33. “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you’ll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you’ll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity, and you’ll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you’ll jump at every crack of a twig.
But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it! God meets daily needs daily. Not weekly or annually. He will give you what you need when it is needed. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.”
Let God be enough!
Psalm 11
A David Psalm
11 1-3 I’ve already run for dear life
straight to the arms of God.
So why would I run away now
when you say,
“Run to the mountains; the evil
bows are bent, the wicked arrows
Aimed to shoot under cover of darkness
at every heart open to God.
The bottom’s dropped out of the country;
good people don’t have a chance”?
4-6 But God hasn’t moved to the mountains;
his holy address hasn’t changed.
He’s in charge, as always, his eyes
taking everything in, his eyelids
Unblinking, examining Adam’s unruly brood
inside and out, not missing a thing.
He tests the good and the bad alike;
if anyone cheats, God’s outraged.
Fail the test and you’re out,
out in a hail of firestones,
Drinking from a canteen
filled with hot desert wind.
7 God’s business is putting things right;
he loves getting the lines straight,
Setting us straight. Once we’re standing tall,
we can look him straight in the eye.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 15:1-7
Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
3-6 That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!
7-13 So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it! Jesus, staying true to God’s purposes, reached out in a special way to the Jewish insiders so that the old ancestral promises would come true for them. As a result, the non-Jewish outsiders have been able to experience mercy and to show appreciation to God. Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do! For instance:
Then I’ll join outsiders in a hymn-sing;
I’ll sing to your name!
And this one:
Outsiders and insiders, rejoice together!
And again:
People of all nations, celebrate God!
All colors and races, give hearty praise!
And Isaiah’s word:
There’s the root of our ancestor Jesse,
breaking through the earth and growing tree tall,
Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Insight
Before encouraging harmony and hospitality in Romans 15, Paul did a good bit of “ground preparation” in the previous chapter. Believers who were in agreement about basic Christian teachings were passing judgment on those with different dietary practices and those who held certain days as more sacred than others. Paul’s teaching was direct and corrective. “Stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister” (14:13). “Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. . . . Do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil” (vv. 15–16). “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. . . . It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall” (vv. 20–21). By: Arthur Jackson
Atmosphere of Encouragement
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. Romans 15:2
I’m encouraged every time I visit the fitness center near our house. In that busy place, I’m surrounded by others who are striving to improve their physical health and strength. Posted signs remind us not to judge each other, but words and actions that reveal support for others’ conditioning efforts are always welcomed.
What a great picture of how things should look in the spiritual realm of life! Those of us who are striving to “get in shape” spiritually, to grow in our faith, can sometimes feel as if we don’t belong because we’re not as spiritually fit—as mature in our walk with Jesus—as someone else.
Paul gave us this short, direct suggestion: “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). And to the believers in Rome he wrote: “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up” (Romans 15:2). Recognizing that our Father is so lovingly gracious with us, let’s show God’s grace to others with encouraging words and actions.
As we “accept one another” (v. 7), let’s entrust our spiritual growth to God—to the work of His Spirit. And while we daily seek to follow Him, may we create an atmosphere of encouragement for our brothers and sisters in Jesus as they also seek to grow in their faith. By Dave Branon
Today's Reflection
Lord, help me today to encourage others along the way. Guide me to say what will not discourage but will spur them toward a deeper walk with You in Your love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L A
Jesus calls us to calmness with this challenge from Matthew 6:32-33. “Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”
Seek first the kingdom of wealth, and you’ll worry over every dollar. Seek first the kingdom of health, and you’ll sweat every blemish and bump. Seek first the kingdom of popularity, and you’ll relive every conflict. Seek first the kingdom of safety, and you’ll jump at every crack of a twig.
But seek first his kingdom, and you will find it! God meets daily needs daily. Not weekly or annually. He will give you what you need when it is needed. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.”
Let God be enough!
Psalm 11
A David Psalm
11 1-3 I’ve already run for dear life
straight to the arms of God.
So why would I run away now
when you say,
“Run to the mountains; the evil
bows are bent, the wicked arrows
Aimed to shoot under cover of darkness
at every heart open to God.
The bottom’s dropped out of the country;
good people don’t have a chance”?
4-6 But God hasn’t moved to the mountains;
his holy address hasn’t changed.
He’s in charge, as always, his eyes
taking everything in, his eyelids
Unblinking, examining Adam’s unruly brood
inside and out, not missing a thing.
He tests the good and the bad alike;
if anyone cheats, God’s outraged.
Fail the test and you’re out,
out in a hail of firestones,
Drinking from a canteen
filled with hot desert wind.
7 God’s business is putting things right;
he loves getting the lines straight,
Setting us straight. Once we’re standing tall,
we can look him straight in the eye.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 15:1-7
Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
3-6 That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!
7-13 So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it! Jesus, staying true to God’s purposes, reached out in a special way to the Jewish insiders so that the old ancestral promises would come true for them. As a result, the non-Jewish outsiders have been able to experience mercy and to show appreciation to God. Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do! For instance:
Then I’ll join outsiders in a hymn-sing;
I’ll sing to your name!
And this one:
Outsiders and insiders, rejoice together!
And again:
People of all nations, celebrate God!
All colors and races, give hearty praise!
And Isaiah’s word:
There’s the root of our ancestor Jesse,
breaking through the earth and growing tree tall,
Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Insight
Before encouraging harmony and hospitality in Romans 15, Paul did a good bit of “ground preparation” in the previous chapter. Believers who were in agreement about basic Christian teachings were passing judgment on those with different dietary practices and those who held certain days as more sacred than others. Paul’s teaching was direct and corrective. “Stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister” (14:13). “Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. . . . Do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil” (vv. 15–16). “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. . . . It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall” (vv. 20–21). By: Arthur Jackson
Atmosphere of Encouragement
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. Romans 15:2
I’m encouraged every time I visit the fitness center near our house. In that busy place, I’m surrounded by others who are striving to improve their physical health and strength. Posted signs remind us not to judge each other, but words and actions that reveal support for others’ conditioning efforts are always welcomed.
What a great picture of how things should look in the spiritual realm of life! Those of us who are striving to “get in shape” spiritually, to grow in our faith, can sometimes feel as if we don’t belong because we’re not as spiritually fit—as mature in our walk with Jesus—as someone else.
Paul gave us this short, direct suggestion: “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). And to the believers in Rome he wrote: “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up” (Romans 15:2). Recognizing that our Father is so lovingly gracious with us, let’s show God’s grace to others with encouraging words and actions.
As we “accept one another” (v. 7), let’s entrust our spiritual growth to God—to the work of His Spirit. And while we daily seek to follow Him, may we create an atmosphere of encouragement for our brothers and sisters in Jesus as they also seek to grow in their faith. By Dave Branon
Today's Reflection
Lord, help me today to encourage others along the way. Guide me to say what will not discourage but will spur them toward a deeper walk with You in Your love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L A
John 8:1-27, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God’s Masterpiece
If you pass your days mumbling, “I’ll never make a difference; I’m not worth anything,” guess what? You’ll be sentencing yourself to a life of gloom without parole! When you do that, you’re questioning God’s judgment, second-guessing his taste.
Psalm 139:14 says you were “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He can’t stop thinking about you. Psalm 139:18 confirms it. If he could count his thoughts of you, “they would be more in number than the sand.”
Why does he love you so much? The same reason the artist loves his paintings or the boat builder loves his vessels. You are God’s idea. And he has only good ideas. Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” You matter to God!
From Fearless
John 8:1-27
Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them.
3-6 The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.
6-8 Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.
9-10 Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”
11 “No one, Master.”
“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
12 Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”
13 The Pharisees objected, “All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on.”
14-18 Jesus replied, “You’re right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I’ve come from and where I go next. You don’t know where I’m from or where I’m headed. You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. That fulfills the conditions set down in God’s Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses. And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me.”
19 They said, “Where is this so-called Father of yours?”
Jesus said, “You’re looking right at me and you don’t see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father.”
20 He gave this speech in the Treasury while teaching in the Temple. No one arrested him because his time wasn’t yet up.
21 Then he went over the same ground again. “I’m leaving and you are going to look for me, but you’re missing God in this and are headed for a dead end. There is no way you can come with me.”
22 The Jews said, “So, is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by ‘You can’t come with me’?”
23-24 Jesus said, “You’re tied down to the mundane; I’m in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I’m living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. You’re at a dead end. If you won’t believe I am who I say I am, you’re at the dead end of sins. You’re missing God in your lives.”
25-26 They said to him, “Just who are you anyway?”
Jesus said, “What I’ve said from the start. I have so many things to say that concern you, judgments to make that affect you, but if you don’t accept the trustworthiness of the One who commanded my words and acts, none of it matters. That is who you are questioning—not me but the One who sent me.”
27-29 They still didn’t get it, didn’t realize that he was referring to the Father. So Jesus tried again. “When you raise up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am—that I’m not making this up, but speaking only what the Father taught me. The One who sent me stays with me. He doesn’t abandon me. He sees how much joy I take in pleasing him.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Acts 9:32-42
Peter went off on a mission to visit all the churches. In the course of his travels he arrived in Lydda and met with the believers there. He came across a man—his name was Aeneas—who had been in bed eight years paralyzed. Peter said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” And he did it—jumped right out of bed. Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.
36-37 Down the road a way in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha, “Gazelle” in our language. She was well-known for doing good and helping out. During the time Peter was in the area she became sick and died. Her friends prepared her body for burial and put her in a cool room.
38-40 Some of the disciples had heard that Peter was visiting in nearby Lydda and sent two men to ask if he would be so kind as to come over. Peter got right up and went with them. They took him into the room where Tabitha’s body was laid out. Her old friends, most of them widows, were in the room mourning. They showed Peter pieces of clothing the Gazelle had made while she was with them. Peter put the widows all out of the room. He knelt and prayed. Then he spoke directly to the body: “Tabitha, get up.”
40-41 She opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up. He took her hand and helped her up. Then he called in the believers and widows, and presented her to them alive.
42-43 When this became known all over Joppa, many put their trust in the Master. Peter stayed on a long time in Joppa as a guest of Simon the Tanner.
Insight
Joppa was Judea’s primary port on the Mediterranean coast. After raising Dorcas from the dead, Peter stayed in Joppa in the house of Simon the tanner (Acts 9:43). While there, Peter went up on the roof to pray and saw a vision that reiterated that God’s salvation blessing is meant for Gentiles too (10:9–16; 11:18). It was from Joppa that Jonah sailed for Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh to tell them about God (Jonah 1:3). It’s significant that from Joppa God now calls Peter to go and proclaim the good news to the Gentiles (Acts 10:24–48). By: K. T. Sim
Acts of Kindness
[Tabitha] was always doing good and helping the poor. Acts 9:36
“Estera, you got a present from our friend Helen!” my mom told me when she got home from work. Growing up we didn’t have much, so receiving a present in the mail was like a second Christmas. I felt loved, remembered, and valued by God through this wonderful woman.
The poor widows Tabitha (Dorcas) made clothes for must have felt the same way. She was a disciple of Jesus living in Joppa who was well known in the community for her acts of kindness. She was “always doing good and helping the poor” (Acts 9:36). Then she got sick and passed away. At the time, Peter was visiting a nearby city, so two believers went after him and begged him to come to Joppa.
When Peter arrived, the widows Tabitha had helped showed him the evidence of her kindness—“the robes and other clothing that [she] had made” (v. 39). We don’t know if they asked him to intervene, but led by the Holy Spirit Peter prayed and God brought her back to life! The result of God’s kindness was that “this became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord” (v. 42).
As we’re kind to those around us, may they turn their thoughts to God and feel valued by Him. By Estera Pirosca Escobar
Today's Reflection
Dear Lord, help me to follow You and show kindness to those around me, so they can see You in me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 16, 2019
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead… —Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard— just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead….” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead…,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
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
If you pass your days mumbling, “I’ll never make a difference; I’m not worth anything,” guess what? You’ll be sentencing yourself to a life of gloom without parole! When you do that, you’re questioning God’s judgment, second-guessing his taste.
Psalm 139:14 says you were “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He can’t stop thinking about you. Psalm 139:18 confirms it. If he could count his thoughts of you, “they would be more in number than the sand.”
Why does he love you so much? The same reason the artist loves his paintings or the boat builder loves his vessels. You are God’s idea. And he has only good ideas. Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” You matter to God!
From Fearless
John 8:1-27
Jesus went across to Mount Olives, but he was soon back in the Temple again. Swarms of people came to him. He sat down and taught them.
3-6 The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.
6-8 Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.
9-10 Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”
11 “No one, Master.”
“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
12 Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”
13 The Pharisees objected, “All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on.”
14-18 Jesus replied, “You’re right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I’ve come from and where I go next. You don’t know where I’m from or where I’m headed. You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. That fulfills the conditions set down in God’s Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses. And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me.”
19 They said, “Where is this so-called Father of yours?”
Jesus said, “You’re looking right at me and you don’t see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father.”
20 He gave this speech in the Treasury while teaching in the Temple. No one arrested him because his time wasn’t yet up.
21 Then he went over the same ground again. “I’m leaving and you are going to look for me, but you’re missing God in this and are headed for a dead end. There is no way you can come with me.”
22 The Jews said, “So, is he going to kill himself? Is that what he means by ‘You can’t come with me’?”
23-24 Jesus said, “You’re tied down to the mundane; I’m in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I’m living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. You’re at a dead end. If you won’t believe I am who I say I am, you’re at the dead end of sins. You’re missing God in your lives.”
25-26 They said to him, “Just who are you anyway?”
Jesus said, “What I’ve said from the start. I have so many things to say that concern you, judgments to make that affect you, but if you don’t accept the trustworthiness of the One who commanded my words and acts, none of it matters. That is who you are questioning—not me but the One who sent me.”
27-29 They still didn’t get it, didn’t realize that he was referring to the Father. So Jesus tried again. “When you raise up the Son of Man, then you will know who I am—that I’m not making this up, but speaking only what the Father taught me. The One who sent me stays with me. He doesn’t abandon me. He sees how much joy I take in pleasing him.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Acts 9:32-42
Peter went off on a mission to visit all the churches. In the course of his travels he arrived in Lydda and met with the believers there. He came across a man—his name was Aeneas—who had been in bed eight years paralyzed. Peter said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” And he did it—jumped right out of bed. Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.
36-37 Down the road a way in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha, “Gazelle” in our language. She was well-known for doing good and helping out. During the time Peter was in the area she became sick and died. Her friends prepared her body for burial and put her in a cool room.
38-40 Some of the disciples had heard that Peter was visiting in nearby Lydda and sent two men to ask if he would be so kind as to come over. Peter got right up and went with them. They took him into the room where Tabitha’s body was laid out. Her old friends, most of them widows, were in the room mourning. They showed Peter pieces of clothing the Gazelle had made while she was with them. Peter put the widows all out of the room. He knelt and prayed. Then he spoke directly to the body: “Tabitha, get up.”
40-41 She opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up. He took her hand and helped her up. Then he called in the believers and widows, and presented her to them alive.
42-43 When this became known all over Joppa, many put their trust in the Master. Peter stayed on a long time in Joppa as a guest of Simon the Tanner.
Insight
Joppa was Judea’s primary port on the Mediterranean coast. After raising Dorcas from the dead, Peter stayed in Joppa in the house of Simon the tanner (Acts 9:43). While there, Peter went up on the roof to pray and saw a vision that reiterated that God’s salvation blessing is meant for Gentiles too (10:9–16; 11:18). It was from Joppa that Jonah sailed for Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh to tell them about God (Jonah 1:3). It’s significant that from Joppa God now calls Peter to go and proclaim the good news to the Gentiles (Acts 10:24–48). By: K. T. Sim
Acts of Kindness
[Tabitha] was always doing good and helping the poor. Acts 9:36
“Estera, you got a present from our friend Helen!” my mom told me when she got home from work. Growing up we didn’t have much, so receiving a present in the mail was like a second Christmas. I felt loved, remembered, and valued by God through this wonderful woman.
The poor widows Tabitha (Dorcas) made clothes for must have felt the same way. She was a disciple of Jesus living in Joppa who was well known in the community for her acts of kindness. She was “always doing good and helping the poor” (Acts 9:36). Then she got sick and passed away. At the time, Peter was visiting a nearby city, so two believers went after him and begged him to come to Joppa.
When Peter arrived, the widows Tabitha had helped showed him the evidence of her kindness—“the robes and other clothing that [she] had made” (v. 39). We don’t know if they asked him to intervene, but led by the Holy Spirit Peter prayed and God brought her back to life! The result of God’s kindness was that “this became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord” (v. 42).
As we’re kind to those around us, may they turn their thoughts to God and feel valued by Him. By Estera Pirosca Escobar
Today's Reflection
Dear Lord, help me to follow You and show kindness to those around me, so they can see You in me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 16, 2019
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead… —Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard— just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead….” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead…,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
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
Friday, February 15, 2019
John 7:28-53, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE UNENDING PRESENCE OF GOD
In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 6:1 says that we are “God’s fellow workers.” Rather than report to God, we work with God. We are always in the presence of God. There is never a non-sacred moment!
Is it possible to live—minute by minute—in the presence of God? Jesus enjoyed unbroken communion with God, and God wants that same abiding intimacy with you and me. He wants to be as close to us as a branch is to a vine. You know it’s impossible to tell where one starts and the other ends. What good news! We are NEVER away from God! And he is NEVER away from us! As we search the Bible, we realize that unbroken communion with God is the intent and not the exception. Within the reach of every Christian is the unending presence of God.
Read more Just Like Jesus
John 7:28-53
That provoked Jesus, who was teaching in the Temple, to cry out, “Yes, you think you know me and where I’m from, but that’s not where I’m from. I didn’t set myself up in business. My true origin is in the One who sent me, and you don’t know him at all. I come from him—that’s how I know him. He sent me here.”
30-31 They were looking for a way to arrest him, but not a hand was laid on him because it wasn’t yet God’s time. Many from the crowd committed themselves in faith to him, saying, “Will the Messiah, when he comes, provide better or more convincing evidence than this?”
32-34 The Pharisees, alarmed at this seditious undertow going through the crowd, teamed up with the high priests and sent their police to arrest him. Jesus rebuffed them: “I am with you only a short time. Then I go on to the One who sent me. You will look for me, but you won’t find me. Where I am, you can’t come.”
35-36 The Jews put their heads together. “Where do you think he is going that we won’t be able to find him? Do you think he is about to travel to the Greek world to teach the Jews? What is he talking about, anyway: ‘You will look for me, but you won’t find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you can’t come’?”
37-39 On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)
40-44 Those in the crowd who heard these words were saying, “This has to be the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Messiah!” But others were saying, “The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? Don’t the Scriptures tell us that the Messiah comes from David’s line and from Bethlehem, David’s village?” So there was a split in the crowd over him. Some went so far as wanting to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
45 That’s when the Temple police reported back to the high priests and Pharisees, who demanded, “Why didn’t you bring him with you?”
46 The police answered, “Have you heard the way he talks? We’ve never heard anyone speak like this man.”
47-49 The Pharisees said, “Are you carried away like the rest of the rabble? You don’t see any of the leaders believing in him, do you? Or any from the Pharisees? It’s only this crowd, ignorant of God’s Law, that is taken in by him—and damned.”
50-51 Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus earlier and was both a ruler and a Pharisee, spoke up. “Does our Law decide about a man’s guilt without first listening to him and finding out what he is doing?”
52-53 But they cut him off. “Are you also campaigning for the Galilean? Examine the evidence. See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee.”
Then they all went home.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Psalm 127:1-2
A Pilgrim Song of Solomon
127 1-2 If God doesn’t build the house,
the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
giving rest to those he loves?
Insight
Psalm 127:1–2 states that the planning and activity of humanity is pointless without the involvement of the Lord. But what does it mean that “the builders labor in vain” and “the guards stand watch in vain”? Vain means “purposelessness” or “futility.” It’s not that the house doesn’t get built or the city isn’t being watched. It means that building the house and protecting the city are under the control of the Lord. Despite our best efforts, it’s the Lord who determines the outcome. Our labors are in vain if we think we are the ultimate determiners of what happens in our lives. By: J.R. Hudberg
Sinking into Grace
[God] grants sleep to those he loves. Psalm 127:2
Finally, on January 8, 1964, seventeen-year-old Randy Gardner did something he hadn’t done for eleven days and twenty-five minutes: he nodded off to sleep. He wanted to beat the Guinness Book World Record for how long a human could stay awake. By drinking soft drinks and hitting the basketball court and bowling alley, Gardner rebuffed sleep for a week and a half. Before finally collapsing, his sense of taste, smell, and hearing went haywire. Decades later, Gardner suffered from severe bouts of insomnia. He set the record but also confirmed the obvious: sleep is essential.
Many of us struggle to get a decent night’s rest. Unlike Gardner who deprived himself intentionally, we might suffer sleeplessness for a number of reasons—including a mountain of anxieties: the fear of all we need to accomplish, the dread of others’ expectations, the distress of living at a frantic pace. Sometimes it’s hard for us to turn off the fear and relax.
The psalmist tells us that “unless the Lord builds the house,” we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). Our “toiling” and our relentless efforts are useless unless God provides what we need. Thankfully, God does provide what we need. He “grants sleep to those he loves” (v. 2). And God’s love extends to all of us. He invites us to release our anxieties to Him and sink into His rest, into His grace. By Winn Collier
Today's Reflection
God, I’m so anxious. I churn inside. Would You help me trust You with my night, with my day, with my life?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 15, 2019
“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
None of us lives to himself… —Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. Baffled to Fight Better, 69 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Highest Wall in the World - #8375
There's something you may not realize about my past. I spent some time in Alcatraz - about half a day. By the time I got inside that infamous prison in San Francisco Bay, there was nobody home. It was a museum! And it's a fascinating place to tour. I actually took a group of teenagers to Alcatraz one day to record a radio program there. We spent some time in the area that was used for solitary confinement...they even locked up the teenagers in the main cell block. Frankly, though, I'll tell you, it is a dismal, depressing environment, even when it's just a museum. As our tour ended, we were led through a gate and into a scenic area just outside the wall. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a fantastic view of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline. One of the teenagers looked back and mumbled three words, "Only a wall." When I asked what he meant, he said, "Just think, only a wall separated them from all of this!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Highest Wall in the World."
It was sad when you looked at it that way. A beautiful world to enjoy, but it was on the other side of a wall. It's even sadder when you realize that many folks who've never been in prison are in that same situation. Missing some beautiful things they were created for because of the wall that's keeping them from it; because of the wall that keeps them from the One who has so much that they've spent their whole life looking for.
Our word for today from the Word of God pointedly describes the spiritual condition many of us are in. Isaiah 59:2 bluntly says, "Your sins have separated you from your God." That's the wall. It's there because we've taken a life that our Creator was supposed to run and we've run it ourselves. Even the most religious people have this wall; this sin wall. Listen, God says, "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). That's how our best spiritual shot compares with God's perfection.
God is the relationship we've been missing and looking for our whole lives. We're lonely because we don't have His love. We're empty because only He can fill the hole in our heart. We're wondering what the meaning of our life is, and we can't get to the only One who knows, because He put us here. The wall is there. If we die with that wall still there between us and God, it's going to be there forever. The Bible has a word for that - hell. Even the heaven we want to go to is on the other side of that wall.
So, the most critical issue in your life is somehow how do we get the wall down between me and the God who made me? Here's the only way that can happen in God's own words, "God our Savior wants all men to be saved," the Bible says, "there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men" (1 Timothy 2:4-5). A ransom is the price you pay to get someone back, right? Well, Jesus paid that for you when He paid the death penalty for your sin on the cross. The day you take what He paid for with His life is the day the wall comes down.
You don't have to live another day with that wall between you and God if you will tell Jesus today you want what He died for. You tell Him you want to begin your personal relationship with Him. There's so much God wants you to have. There's so much you've been seeking. What keeps you from it is what keeps you from Him - the wall called sin. Jesus already took care of it. He died for it.
If you're ready for the wall to come down, would you tell Him that right now? "Jesus, I believe You died and it took Your death to remove the wall of my sin. And I believe you walked out of your grave to be alive today to come into my life and forgive my sin. Today, Lord, please erase everything I've ever done wrong from God's book. Only You can, and I believe You will. I am Yours."
You may have questions. You may say, "I'd like to know more about this." Well, that's exactly what our website, ANewStory.com; that's why it is there. It is for you for this moment. Please go there as soon as you can - ANewStory.com.
That wall is keeping you from so much only God can give you - only a wall. And one day it's going to keep you from heaven. But Jesus, who died for you, stands ready this very moment to tear down that wall. This is your day to have it come down forever.
In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 6:1 says that we are “God’s fellow workers.” Rather than report to God, we work with God. We are always in the presence of God. There is never a non-sacred moment!
Is it possible to live—minute by minute—in the presence of God? Jesus enjoyed unbroken communion with God, and God wants that same abiding intimacy with you and me. He wants to be as close to us as a branch is to a vine. You know it’s impossible to tell where one starts and the other ends. What good news! We are NEVER away from God! And he is NEVER away from us! As we search the Bible, we realize that unbroken communion with God is the intent and not the exception. Within the reach of every Christian is the unending presence of God.
Read more Just Like Jesus
John 7:28-53
That provoked Jesus, who was teaching in the Temple, to cry out, “Yes, you think you know me and where I’m from, but that’s not where I’m from. I didn’t set myself up in business. My true origin is in the One who sent me, and you don’t know him at all. I come from him—that’s how I know him. He sent me here.”
30-31 They were looking for a way to arrest him, but not a hand was laid on him because it wasn’t yet God’s time. Many from the crowd committed themselves in faith to him, saying, “Will the Messiah, when he comes, provide better or more convincing evidence than this?”
32-34 The Pharisees, alarmed at this seditious undertow going through the crowd, teamed up with the high priests and sent their police to arrest him. Jesus rebuffed them: “I am with you only a short time. Then I go on to the One who sent me. You will look for me, but you won’t find me. Where I am, you can’t come.”
35-36 The Jews put their heads together. “Where do you think he is going that we won’t be able to find him? Do you think he is about to travel to the Greek world to teach the Jews? What is he talking about, anyway: ‘You will look for me, but you won’t find me,’ and ‘Where I am, you can’t come’?”
37-39 On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand. He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (He said this in regard to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were about to receive. The Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.)
40-44 Those in the crowd who heard these words were saying, “This has to be the Prophet.” Others said, “He is the Messiah!” But others were saying, “The Messiah doesn’t come from Galilee, does he? Don’t the Scriptures tell us that the Messiah comes from David’s line and from Bethlehem, David’s village?” So there was a split in the crowd over him. Some went so far as wanting to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
45 That’s when the Temple police reported back to the high priests and Pharisees, who demanded, “Why didn’t you bring him with you?”
46 The police answered, “Have you heard the way he talks? We’ve never heard anyone speak like this man.”
47-49 The Pharisees said, “Are you carried away like the rest of the rabble? You don’t see any of the leaders believing in him, do you? Or any from the Pharisees? It’s only this crowd, ignorant of God’s Law, that is taken in by him—and damned.”
50-51 Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus earlier and was both a ruler and a Pharisee, spoke up. “Does our Law decide about a man’s guilt without first listening to him and finding out what he is doing?”
52-53 But they cut him off. “Are you also campaigning for the Galilean? Examine the evidence. See if any prophet ever comes from Galilee.”
Then they all went home.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Psalm 127:1-2
A Pilgrim Song of Solomon
127 1-2 If God doesn’t build the house,
the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
giving rest to those he loves?
Insight
Psalm 127:1–2 states that the planning and activity of humanity is pointless without the involvement of the Lord. But what does it mean that “the builders labor in vain” and “the guards stand watch in vain”? Vain means “purposelessness” or “futility.” It’s not that the house doesn’t get built or the city isn’t being watched. It means that building the house and protecting the city are under the control of the Lord. Despite our best efforts, it’s the Lord who determines the outcome. Our labors are in vain if we think we are the ultimate determiners of what happens in our lives. By: J.R. Hudberg
Sinking into Grace
[God] grants sleep to those he loves. Psalm 127:2
Finally, on January 8, 1964, seventeen-year-old Randy Gardner did something he hadn’t done for eleven days and twenty-five minutes: he nodded off to sleep. He wanted to beat the Guinness Book World Record for how long a human could stay awake. By drinking soft drinks and hitting the basketball court and bowling alley, Gardner rebuffed sleep for a week and a half. Before finally collapsing, his sense of taste, smell, and hearing went haywire. Decades later, Gardner suffered from severe bouts of insomnia. He set the record but also confirmed the obvious: sleep is essential.
Many of us struggle to get a decent night’s rest. Unlike Gardner who deprived himself intentionally, we might suffer sleeplessness for a number of reasons—including a mountain of anxieties: the fear of all we need to accomplish, the dread of others’ expectations, the distress of living at a frantic pace. Sometimes it’s hard for us to turn off the fear and relax.
The psalmist tells us that “unless the Lord builds the house,” we labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). Our “toiling” and our relentless efforts are useless unless God provides what we need. Thankfully, God does provide what we need. He “grants sleep to those he loves” (v. 2). And God’s love extends to all of us. He invites us to release our anxieties to Him and sink into His rest, into His grace. By Winn Collier
Today's Reflection
God, I’m so anxious. I churn inside. Would You help me trust You with my night, with my day, with my life?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 15, 2019
“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
None of us lives to himself… —Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. Baffled to Fight Better, 69 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Highest Wall in the World - #8375
There's something you may not realize about my past. I spent some time in Alcatraz - about half a day. By the time I got inside that infamous prison in San Francisco Bay, there was nobody home. It was a museum! And it's a fascinating place to tour. I actually took a group of teenagers to Alcatraz one day to record a radio program there. We spent some time in the area that was used for solitary confinement...they even locked up the teenagers in the main cell block. Frankly, though, I'll tell you, it is a dismal, depressing environment, even when it's just a museum. As our tour ended, we were led through a gate and into a scenic area just outside the wall. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a fantastic view of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline. One of the teenagers looked back and mumbled three words, "Only a wall." When I asked what he meant, he said, "Just think, only a wall separated them from all of this!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Highest Wall in the World."
It was sad when you looked at it that way. A beautiful world to enjoy, but it was on the other side of a wall. It's even sadder when you realize that many folks who've never been in prison are in that same situation. Missing some beautiful things they were created for because of the wall that's keeping them from it; because of the wall that keeps them from the One who has so much that they've spent their whole life looking for.
Our word for today from the Word of God pointedly describes the spiritual condition many of us are in. Isaiah 59:2 bluntly says, "Your sins have separated you from your God." That's the wall. It's there because we've taken a life that our Creator was supposed to run and we've run it ourselves. Even the most religious people have this wall; this sin wall. Listen, God says, "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). That's how our best spiritual shot compares with God's perfection.
God is the relationship we've been missing and looking for our whole lives. We're lonely because we don't have His love. We're empty because only He can fill the hole in our heart. We're wondering what the meaning of our life is, and we can't get to the only One who knows, because He put us here. The wall is there. If we die with that wall still there between us and God, it's going to be there forever. The Bible has a word for that - hell. Even the heaven we want to go to is on the other side of that wall.
So, the most critical issue in your life is somehow how do we get the wall down between me and the God who made me? Here's the only way that can happen in God's own words, "God our Savior wants all men to be saved," the Bible says, "there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men" (1 Timothy 2:4-5). A ransom is the price you pay to get someone back, right? Well, Jesus paid that for you when He paid the death penalty for your sin on the cross. The day you take what He paid for with His life is the day the wall comes down.
You don't have to live another day with that wall between you and God if you will tell Jesus today you want what He died for. You tell Him you want to begin your personal relationship with Him. There's so much God wants you to have. There's so much you've been seeking. What keeps you from it is what keeps you from Him - the wall called sin. Jesus already took care of it. He died for it.
If you're ready for the wall to come down, would you tell Him that right now? "Jesus, I believe You died and it took Your death to remove the wall of my sin. And I believe you walked out of your grave to be alive today to come into my life and forgive my sin. Today, Lord, please erase everything I've ever done wrong from God's book. Only You can, and I believe You will. I am Yours."
You may have questions. You may say, "I'd like to know more about this." Well, that's exactly what our website, ANewStory.com; that's why it is there. It is for you for this moment. Please go there as soon as you can - ANewStory.com.
That wall is keeping you from so much only God can give you - only a wall. And one day it's going to keep you from heaven. But Jesus, who died for you, stands ready this very moment to tear down that wall. This is your day to have it come down forever.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Psalm 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily:
LEARNING TO LISTEN TO GOD
I believe we can learn to listen to God if we are equipped with the right tools. The first tool is a regular time and place. Select a slot on your schedule and a corner of your world, and claim it for God. Take enough time to say what you want and for God to say what he wants.
The second tool is an open Bible. Pray first, asking God to help you understand it. Study the Bible a little at a time. Read until a verse “hits” you. Then meditate on it and write it down.
The third tool is a listening heart. We know we’re listening when what we read in the Bible is what others see in our lives. If you want to be just like Jesus, spend time listening for him until you receive your lesson for the day—and then apply it.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 8
A David Psalm
8 God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 20:13-16
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
13-14 “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
15 Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
16 Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
Insight
Notice how each person identifies the other during the conversation in John 20:13–16. Mary Magdalene refers to Jesus as “Lord” (thinking Him dead, v. 13), “Sir” (thinking Him to be the gardener, v. 15), and “Rabboni” or “Teacher” (upon recognizing Him, v. 16). On His side of the dialogue, Jesus refers to Mary as “woman” (v. 15) before addressing her by name (v. 16).
Mary honors Jesus’s memory by calling Him “Lord,” and even in the midst of her grief she respects the supposed gardener by calling Him “sir” (a common, polite form of kurios or “lord”). It may appear that Jesus is being unwelcoming when He calls Mary “woman”; to our ears that may seem distant or even harsh. But in that culture, it was a respectful term and one Jesus had used to address His mother in John 2:4. Everything turns, however, when Jesus speaks her name and she sees Him as her risen Teacher. By: Bill Crowder
Out of Context
She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. John 20:14
As I queued up to board my flight, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned and received a warm greeting. “Elisa! Do you remember me? It’s Joan!” My mind flipped through various “Joans” I’d known, but I couldn’t place her. Was she a previous neighbor? A past coworker? Oh dear . . . I didn’t know.
Sensing my struggle, Joan responded, “Elisa, we knew each other in high school.” A memory rose: Friday night football games, cheering from the stands. Once the context was clarified, I recognized Joan.
After Jesus’s death, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone rolled away and His body gone (John 20:1–2). She ran to get Peter and John, who returned with her to find the tomb empty (vv. 3–10). But Mary lingered outside in her grief (v. 11). When Jesus appeared there, “she did not realize that it was Jesus” (v. 14), thinking He was the gardener (v. 15).
How could she have not recognized Jesus? Was His resurrected body so changed that it was difficult to recognize Him? Did her grief blind her to His identity? Or, perhaps, like me, was it because Jesus was “out of context,” alive in the garden instead of dead in the tomb, that she didn’t recognize Him?
How might we too miss Jesus when He comes into our days—during prayer or Bible reading, or by simply whispering in our hearts? By Elisa Morgan
Today's Reflection
Dear God, give us eyes to see Jesus, however He comes—in a familiar context or surprising us in an unexpected one.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 14, 2019
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Beyond Platonic to Passionate - #8374
It was Valentine's Day and it turned out to be a milestone day in my relationship with the girl I considered to be the best catch in our class. I knew she had been seriously dating someone else for quite a while, and I had to plan my moves very shrewdly or I'd scare her off. So, we had what we both called this "brother/sister" relationship. Oh, sure I wanted it to be more, but at least I could spend some time with her this way without scaring her off. Well, one day I'd had enough of this platonic relationship stuff. She was actually bringing a Valentine's cake up to some radio staff at our college and I happened to be there. We got into a pretty intense discussion there, standing by the water fountain. And finally I blurted out what I'd been feeling for a long time, "I'm sick and tired of just being your 'brother.' I want it to be much more!" There it was, man, all or nothing. And what happened? I married the girl! (OK, this is the part where the audience cheers.)
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beyond Platonic to Passionate."
Setting aside the romantic part of this, I can't help but wonder if Jesus doesn't want to have a conversation with you and me like I had with the woman I loved that day. "I'm tired of the level of relationship you've settled for with Me. I want it to be so much more!" So many of us have been settling for a static, humdrum, platonic relationship with Jesus, and He's calling us to something far more passionate with Him.
Simon Peter, the man who was always at Jesus' service, found out what Jesus cared about most the day Jesus asked him The Question. It's found in John 21, beginning with verse 15. It's our word for today from the Word of God. The risen Christ has called Peter aside for a private conversation on the lakeshore. "Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon...do you truly love Me more than these?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my lambs.' Again Jesus said, 'Simon...do you truly love Me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Take care of My sheep.' The third time he said to him, 'Simon...do you love Me?' Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' He said, 'Lord...You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep.'"
Now, notice what Jesus didn't ask: "Do you believe in Me?" or "Do you want to work hard for Me?" He only wanted to know one thing, "Do you really love Me?" That's all He really wants to know from you. One reason He asks it three times, I think, is because it's just so easy to say a cheap "yes." We know yes is the only right answer, but Jesus is saying, "Are you ready to take your commitment to me, your closeness to me, to a much deeper level? Do you want our relationship to be much more than it has been?" He does. He poured out His blood - His life for you. How can we settle for the same old level of loving Him; predictable, official, mechanical, playing it safe.
What will it mean to become more passionate in your love for Jesus? First, it's going to mean more time with Him - not just a rushed or occasional time with Jesus on the margins of your schedule. We're talking about like non-negotiable, daily "face time" with your Savior. More love also means more honesty - not just talking to Him from your head; not just saying to Him what you're "supposed to" say, but I mean pouring out the deepest corners of your heart to Him.
And going for more of Jesus means more praise - consciously, all day long, looking for Jesus all over your day and stopping to praise Him when you see Him. And enlarging your Jesus-love means more territory, letting go of that steering wheel in areas of your life where you've been holding onto control. Releasing what you love most completely to His control, because you can't love Him as He deserves if you're loving something else more. That's spiritual adultery.
Imagine Jesus standing there in front of you, looking you in the eyes saying, "Are you ready to really love Me? I died for our relationship to be more than this." The hymn writer said: "I love Thee because Thou has first loved me, and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree; I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow; if ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."
LEARNING TO LISTEN TO GOD
I believe we can learn to listen to God if we are equipped with the right tools. The first tool is a regular time and place. Select a slot on your schedule and a corner of your world, and claim it for God. Take enough time to say what you want and for God to say what he wants.
The second tool is an open Bible. Pray first, asking God to help you understand it. Study the Bible a little at a time. Read until a verse “hits” you. Then meditate on it and write it down.
The third tool is a listening heart. We know we’re listening when what we read in the Bible is what others see in our lives. If you want to be just like Jesus, spend time listening for him until you receive your lesson for the day—and then apply it.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 8
A David Psalm
8 God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 20:13-16
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
13-14 “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
15 Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
16 Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
Insight
Notice how each person identifies the other during the conversation in John 20:13–16. Mary Magdalene refers to Jesus as “Lord” (thinking Him dead, v. 13), “Sir” (thinking Him to be the gardener, v. 15), and “Rabboni” or “Teacher” (upon recognizing Him, v. 16). On His side of the dialogue, Jesus refers to Mary as “woman” (v. 15) before addressing her by name (v. 16).
Mary honors Jesus’s memory by calling Him “Lord,” and even in the midst of her grief she respects the supposed gardener by calling Him “sir” (a common, polite form of kurios or “lord”). It may appear that Jesus is being unwelcoming when He calls Mary “woman”; to our ears that may seem distant or even harsh. But in that culture, it was a respectful term and one Jesus had used to address His mother in John 2:4. Everything turns, however, when Jesus speaks her name and she sees Him as her risen Teacher. By: Bill Crowder
Out of Context
She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. John 20:14
As I queued up to board my flight, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned and received a warm greeting. “Elisa! Do you remember me? It’s Joan!” My mind flipped through various “Joans” I’d known, but I couldn’t place her. Was she a previous neighbor? A past coworker? Oh dear . . . I didn’t know.
Sensing my struggle, Joan responded, “Elisa, we knew each other in high school.” A memory rose: Friday night football games, cheering from the stands. Once the context was clarified, I recognized Joan.
After Jesus’s death, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone rolled away and His body gone (John 20:1–2). She ran to get Peter and John, who returned with her to find the tomb empty (vv. 3–10). But Mary lingered outside in her grief (v. 11). When Jesus appeared there, “she did not realize that it was Jesus” (v. 14), thinking He was the gardener (v. 15).
How could she have not recognized Jesus? Was His resurrected body so changed that it was difficult to recognize Him? Did her grief blind her to His identity? Or, perhaps, like me, was it because Jesus was “out of context,” alive in the garden instead of dead in the tomb, that she didn’t recognize Him?
How might we too miss Jesus when He comes into our days—during prayer or Bible reading, or by simply whispering in our hearts? By Elisa Morgan
Today's Reflection
Dear God, give us eyes to see Jesus, however He comes—in a familiar context or surprising us in an unexpected one.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 14, 2019
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Beyond Platonic to Passionate - #8374
It was Valentine's Day and it turned out to be a milestone day in my relationship with the girl I considered to be the best catch in our class. I knew she had been seriously dating someone else for quite a while, and I had to plan my moves very shrewdly or I'd scare her off. So, we had what we both called this "brother/sister" relationship. Oh, sure I wanted it to be more, but at least I could spend some time with her this way without scaring her off. Well, one day I'd had enough of this platonic relationship stuff. She was actually bringing a Valentine's cake up to some radio staff at our college and I happened to be there. We got into a pretty intense discussion there, standing by the water fountain. And finally I blurted out what I'd been feeling for a long time, "I'm sick and tired of just being your 'brother.' I want it to be much more!" There it was, man, all or nothing. And what happened? I married the girl! (OK, this is the part where the audience cheers.)
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beyond Platonic to Passionate."
Setting aside the romantic part of this, I can't help but wonder if Jesus doesn't want to have a conversation with you and me like I had with the woman I loved that day. "I'm tired of the level of relationship you've settled for with Me. I want it to be so much more!" So many of us have been settling for a static, humdrum, platonic relationship with Jesus, and He's calling us to something far more passionate with Him.
Simon Peter, the man who was always at Jesus' service, found out what Jesus cared about most the day Jesus asked him The Question. It's found in John 21, beginning with verse 15. It's our word for today from the Word of God. The risen Christ has called Peter aside for a private conversation on the lakeshore. "Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon...do you truly love Me more than these?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my lambs.' Again Jesus said, 'Simon...do you truly love Me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Take care of My sheep.' The third time he said to him, 'Simon...do you love Me?' Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' He said, 'Lord...You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep.'"
Now, notice what Jesus didn't ask: "Do you believe in Me?" or "Do you want to work hard for Me?" He only wanted to know one thing, "Do you really love Me?" That's all He really wants to know from you. One reason He asks it three times, I think, is because it's just so easy to say a cheap "yes." We know yes is the only right answer, but Jesus is saying, "Are you ready to take your commitment to me, your closeness to me, to a much deeper level? Do you want our relationship to be much more than it has been?" He does. He poured out His blood - His life for you. How can we settle for the same old level of loving Him; predictable, official, mechanical, playing it safe.
What will it mean to become more passionate in your love for Jesus? First, it's going to mean more time with Him - not just a rushed or occasional time with Jesus on the margins of your schedule. We're talking about like non-negotiable, daily "face time" with your Savior. More love also means more honesty - not just talking to Him from your head; not just saying to Him what you're "supposed to" say, but I mean pouring out the deepest corners of your heart to Him.
And going for more of Jesus means more praise - consciously, all day long, looking for Jesus all over your day and stopping to praise Him when you see Him. And enlarging your Jesus-love means more territory, letting go of that steering wheel in areas of your life where you've been holding onto control. Releasing what you love most completely to His control, because you can't love Him as He deserves if you're loving something else more. That's spiritual adultery.
Imagine Jesus standing there in front of you, looking you in the eyes saying, "Are you ready to really love Me? I died for our relationship to be more than this." The hymn writer said: "I love Thee because Thou has first loved me, and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree; I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow; if ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Psalm 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: SPENDING TIME WITH GOD
Some of us have tried to have a daily quiet time with God and have not been successful. And all of us are busy. So we let others tell us what God is saying. Isn’t that why we pay preachers? Isn’t that why we read Christian books? If that is your approach, your spiritual experiences are second-hand. Do you do that with other parts of your life—vacation, romance, eating? I don’t think so. There are certain things no one can do for you.
When God asks for your attention, he doesn’t want you to send a substitute. He invites you to vacation in his splendor. He invites you to feel the touch of his hand. He invites you to feast at his table. He wants to spend time with you. And with a little training, your time with God can be the highlight of your day.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 7
A David Psalm
7 1-2 God! God! I am running to you for dear life;
the chase is wild.
If they catch me, I’m finished:
ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions,
dragged into the forest and left
unlooked for, unremembered.
3-5 God, if I’ve done what they say—
betrayed my friends,
ripped off my enemies—
If my hands are really that dirty,
let them get me, walk all over me,
leave me flat on my face in the dirt.
6-8 Stand up, God; pit your holy fury
against my furious enemies.
Wake up, God. My accusers have packed
the courtroom; it’s judgment time.
Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel,
throw out the false charges against me.
I’m ready, confident in your verdict:
“Innocent.”
9-11 Close the book on Evil, God,
but publish your mandate for us.
You get us ready for life:
you probe for our soft spots,
you knock off our rough edges.
And I’m feeling so fit, so safe:
made right, kept right.
God in solemn honor does things right,
but his nerves are sandpapered raw.
11-13 Nobody gets by with anything.
God is already in action—
Sword honed on his whetstone,
bow strung, arrow on the string,
Lethal weapons in hand,
each arrow a flaming missile.
14 Look at that guy!
He had sex with sin,
he’s pregnant with evil.
Oh, look! He’s having
the baby—a Lie-Baby!
15-16 See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again—you’ll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That’s what happens:
mischief backfires;
violence boomerangs.
17 I’m thanking God, who makes things right.
I’m singing the fame of heaven-high God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Psalm 39:1-7
A David Psalm
39 1-3 I’m determined to watch steps and tongue
so they won’t land me in trouble.
I decided to hold my tongue
as long as Wicked is in the room.
“Mum’s the word,” I said, and kept quiet.
But the longer I kept silence
The worse it got—
my insides got hotter and hotter.
My thoughts boiled over;
I spilled my guts.
4-6 “Tell me, what’s going on, God?
How long do I have to live?
Give me the bad news!
You’ve kept me on pretty short rations;
my life is string too short to be saved.
Oh! we’re all puffs of air.
Oh! we’re all shadows in a campfire.
Oh! we’re just spit in the wind.
We make our pile, and then we leave it.
7-11 “What am I doing in the meantime, Lord?
Hoping, that’s what I’m doing—hoping
You’ll save me from a rebel life,
save me from the contempt of dunces.
I’ll say no more, I’ll shut my mouth,
since you, Lord, are behind all this.
But I can’t take it much longer.
When you put us through the fire
to purge us from our sin,
our dearest idols go up in smoke.
Are we also nothing but smoke?
Insight
Psalms 38 and 39 express David’s regret for unnamed wrongs (38:3–4; 39:10). He may have written these psalms after being forced to admit his adultery with Bathsheba and his conspiracy to kill her husband (2 Samuel 11–12). Or they might reflect the tragic aftermath of his decision to call for a census to assess the military strength of his nation (ch. 24).
What is clear is that with these two sad songs the second king of Israel gave us a picture of a heart on fire (Psalm 39:3). Both reflect the refining process used by the Spirit of God to lovingly burn away the illusions of our own efforts to satisfy or defend ourselves at the expense of others. Once begun, the fire becomes light. For David, the flames of his wrongs also spread to consume his confidence in a fleeting life (vv. 4–5) and our phantomlike rush to accumulate temporary material wealth (vv. 6, 11). By: Mart DeHaan
The Battle
But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7
As artillery rounds fell around him with an earth-shaking whoomp, the young soldier prayed fervently, “Lord, if you get me through this, I’ll go to that Bible school Mom wanted me to attend.” God honored his focused prayer. My dad survived World War II, went to Moody Bible Institute, and invested his life in ministry.
Another warrior endured a different kind of crisis that drove him to God, but his problems arose when he avoided combat. As King David’s troops fought the Ammonites, David was back at his palace casting more than just a glance at another man’s wife (see 2 Samuel 11). In Psalm 39, David chronicles the painful process of restoration from the terrible sin that resulted. “The turmoil within me grew worse,” he wrote. “The more I thought about it, the hotter I got” (vv. 2–3 nlt).
David’s broken spirit caused him to reflect: “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is” (v. 4). Amid his renewed focus, David didn’t despair. He had nowhere else to turn. “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you” (v. 7). David would survive this personal battle and go on to serve God.
What motivates our prayer life doesn’t matter as much as the focus of our prayer. God is our source of hope. He wants us to share our heart with Him. By Tim Gustafson
Today's Reflection
Father, our hope is in You. Forgive us for seeking answers apart from You. Draw us close to You today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, "Speak, for Your servant hears." —1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, “You are My friends…” (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don’t even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don’t want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don’t hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God’s voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things— things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God’s voice today?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
No Such Thing as Mission Impossible - #8373
"Good morning, Mr. Phelps." If you were a fan of the old school classic TV series, "Mission: Impossible," you would know those words always began a riveting adventure. Jim Phelps was the head of all the Mission Impossible Force before all the big movies, you know. He would listen to this tape, outlining this assignment that seemed, well, impossible. Key word-seemed. And even in more modern times when it's not a tape anymore, and when it's Tom Cruise who's doing Mission: Impossible, it's still sort of the same idea. You begin building a team of specialists, you concoct this elaborate, perfectly-timed plan to do what couldn't be done, and every time they got it done.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Such Thing as Mission Impossible."
That's the conclusion you reached after watching that show for a while. For them, there's just no such thing as mission impossible. That's great fantasy stuff. It's a much greater reality when it comes to rescue missions undertaken by the One of whom the Bible says, "For with God, nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). That might be important for you to know right now, because there's a person in your life that seems beyond His reach. Well, wait a minute! There's no such person.
The living proof of that is our word for today from the Word of God. Saul, the man leading the crusade to eradicate the early Christians. He is on the way from Jerusalem to Damascus to round up more of those hated believers. Acts 9:3 says, "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?' 'Who are You, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting...'"
After this dramatic encounter with Jesus, the Bible says, "Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind..." You probably know that this persecutor of Jesus' followers will ultimately become the greatest proclaimer of Jesus in the world, the world-changing Apostle Paul.
I cannot imagine anyone in the world of the early Christians whom they would have considered a greater "mission impossible." But there's no such thing when it comes to God, including that person in your life who seems to be so hard, so far from God, so antagonistic, so impossible to get through to. In fact, maybe you've almost stopped believing, stopped seeking opportunities to point them in Jesus' direction. Maybe you've even stopped praying very much for them.
Please, don't stop going to God on their behalf. Ask God, "Lord, do whatever it takes within Your will to get through to their heart." That's a powerful prayer...the "whatever it takes" prayer. He may have to knock them off their high horse, as He did Saul. He may have to bring them to a position where they're helpless, as He did with Saul. He may have to show up dramatically in front of them, but Jesus didn't die for them just to give up on them now.
As you pray, this very moment, Jesus the ultimate Mission Impossible Man, is moving people, He's moving events to bring someone you love face to face with Him. You may not even be here for the answer to your prayers, but God has this promise for you in Galatians 6:9, "...we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Mission Impossible? For Jesus, there's no such thing.
Some of us have tried to have a daily quiet time with God and have not been successful. And all of us are busy. So we let others tell us what God is saying. Isn’t that why we pay preachers? Isn’t that why we read Christian books? If that is your approach, your spiritual experiences are second-hand. Do you do that with other parts of your life—vacation, romance, eating? I don’t think so. There are certain things no one can do for you.
When God asks for your attention, he doesn’t want you to send a substitute. He invites you to vacation in his splendor. He invites you to feel the touch of his hand. He invites you to feast at his table. He wants to spend time with you. And with a little training, your time with God can be the highlight of your day.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 7
A David Psalm
7 1-2 God! God! I am running to you for dear life;
the chase is wild.
If they catch me, I’m finished:
ripped to shreds by foes fierce as lions,
dragged into the forest and left
unlooked for, unremembered.
3-5 God, if I’ve done what they say—
betrayed my friends,
ripped off my enemies—
If my hands are really that dirty,
let them get me, walk all over me,
leave me flat on my face in the dirt.
6-8 Stand up, God; pit your holy fury
against my furious enemies.
Wake up, God. My accusers have packed
the courtroom; it’s judgment time.
Take your place on the bench, reach for your gavel,
throw out the false charges against me.
I’m ready, confident in your verdict:
“Innocent.”
9-11 Close the book on Evil, God,
but publish your mandate for us.
You get us ready for life:
you probe for our soft spots,
you knock off our rough edges.
And I’m feeling so fit, so safe:
made right, kept right.
God in solemn honor does things right,
but his nerves are sandpapered raw.
11-13 Nobody gets by with anything.
God is already in action—
Sword honed on his whetstone,
bow strung, arrow on the string,
Lethal weapons in hand,
each arrow a flaming missile.
14 Look at that guy!
He had sex with sin,
he’s pregnant with evil.
Oh, look! He’s having
the baby—a Lie-Baby!
15-16 See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again—you’ll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That’s what happens:
mischief backfires;
violence boomerangs.
17 I’m thanking God, who makes things right.
I’m singing the fame of heaven-high God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Psalm 39:1-7
A David Psalm
39 1-3 I’m determined to watch steps and tongue
so they won’t land me in trouble.
I decided to hold my tongue
as long as Wicked is in the room.
“Mum’s the word,” I said, and kept quiet.
But the longer I kept silence
The worse it got—
my insides got hotter and hotter.
My thoughts boiled over;
I spilled my guts.
4-6 “Tell me, what’s going on, God?
How long do I have to live?
Give me the bad news!
You’ve kept me on pretty short rations;
my life is string too short to be saved.
Oh! we’re all puffs of air.
Oh! we’re all shadows in a campfire.
Oh! we’re just spit in the wind.
We make our pile, and then we leave it.
7-11 “What am I doing in the meantime, Lord?
Hoping, that’s what I’m doing—hoping
You’ll save me from a rebel life,
save me from the contempt of dunces.
I’ll say no more, I’ll shut my mouth,
since you, Lord, are behind all this.
But I can’t take it much longer.
When you put us through the fire
to purge us from our sin,
our dearest idols go up in smoke.
Are we also nothing but smoke?
Insight
Psalms 38 and 39 express David’s regret for unnamed wrongs (38:3–4; 39:10). He may have written these psalms after being forced to admit his adultery with Bathsheba and his conspiracy to kill her husband (2 Samuel 11–12). Or they might reflect the tragic aftermath of his decision to call for a census to assess the military strength of his nation (ch. 24).
What is clear is that with these two sad songs the second king of Israel gave us a picture of a heart on fire (Psalm 39:3). Both reflect the refining process used by the Spirit of God to lovingly burn away the illusions of our own efforts to satisfy or defend ourselves at the expense of others. Once begun, the fire becomes light. For David, the flames of his wrongs also spread to consume his confidence in a fleeting life (vv. 4–5) and our phantomlike rush to accumulate temporary material wealth (vv. 6, 11). By: Mart DeHaan
The Battle
But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. Psalm 39:7
As artillery rounds fell around him with an earth-shaking whoomp, the young soldier prayed fervently, “Lord, if you get me through this, I’ll go to that Bible school Mom wanted me to attend.” God honored his focused prayer. My dad survived World War II, went to Moody Bible Institute, and invested his life in ministry.
Another warrior endured a different kind of crisis that drove him to God, but his problems arose when he avoided combat. As King David’s troops fought the Ammonites, David was back at his palace casting more than just a glance at another man’s wife (see 2 Samuel 11). In Psalm 39, David chronicles the painful process of restoration from the terrible sin that resulted. “The turmoil within me grew worse,” he wrote. “The more I thought about it, the hotter I got” (vv. 2–3 nlt).
David’s broken spirit caused him to reflect: “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is” (v. 4). Amid his renewed focus, David didn’t despair. He had nowhere else to turn. “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you” (v. 7). David would survive this personal battle and go on to serve God.
What motivates our prayer life doesn’t matter as much as the focus of our prayer. God is our source of hope. He wants us to share our heart with Him. By Tim Gustafson
Today's Reflection
Father, our hope is in You. Forgive us for seeking answers apart from You. Draw us close to You today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
The Devotion of Hearing
Samuel answered, "Speak, for Your servant hears." —1 Samuel 3:10
Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, “You are My friends…” (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don’t even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don’t want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don’t hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God’s voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things— things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God’s voice today?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
No Such Thing as Mission Impossible - #8373
"Good morning, Mr. Phelps." If you were a fan of the old school classic TV series, "Mission: Impossible," you would know those words always began a riveting adventure. Jim Phelps was the head of all the Mission Impossible Force before all the big movies, you know. He would listen to this tape, outlining this assignment that seemed, well, impossible. Key word-seemed. And even in more modern times when it's not a tape anymore, and when it's Tom Cruise who's doing Mission: Impossible, it's still sort of the same idea. You begin building a team of specialists, you concoct this elaborate, perfectly-timed plan to do what couldn't be done, and every time they got it done.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Such Thing as Mission Impossible."
That's the conclusion you reached after watching that show for a while. For them, there's just no such thing as mission impossible. That's great fantasy stuff. It's a much greater reality when it comes to rescue missions undertaken by the One of whom the Bible says, "For with God, nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). That might be important for you to know right now, because there's a person in your life that seems beyond His reach. Well, wait a minute! There's no such person.
The living proof of that is our word for today from the Word of God. Saul, the man leading the crusade to eradicate the early Christians. He is on the way from Jerusalem to Damascus to round up more of those hated believers. Acts 9:3 says, "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?' 'Who are You, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting...'"
After this dramatic encounter with Jesus, the Bible says, "Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind..." You probably know that this persecutor of Jesus' followers will ultimately become the greatest proclaimer of Jesus in the world, the world-changing Apostle Paul.
I cannot imagine anyone in the world of the early Christians whom they would have considered a greater "mission impossible." But there's no such thing when it comes to God, including that person in your life who seems to be so hard, so far from God, so antagonistic, so impossible to get through to. In fact, maybe you've almost stopped believing, stopped seeking opportunities to point them in Jesus' direction. Maybe you've even stopped praying very much for them.
Please, don't stop going to God on their behalf. Ask God, "Lord, do whatever it takes within Your will to get through to their heart." That's a powerful prayer...the "whatever it takes" prayer. He may have to knock them off their high horse, as He did Saul. He may have to bring them to a position where they're helpless, as He did with Saul. He may have to show up dramatically in front of them, but Jesus didn't die for them just to give up on them now.
As you pray, this very moment, Jesus the ultimate Mission Impossible Man, is moving people, He's moving events to bring someone you love face to face with Him. You may not even be here for the answer to your prayers, but God has this promise for you in Galatians 6:9, "...we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Mission Impossible? For Jesus, there's no such thing.
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