Colossians 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 Max Lucado Daily: JESUS HAS BEEN THERE

Millions facing the chill of empty pockets or the fears of sudden change turn to Christ. Why? Because he’s been there. He’s been to Nazareth, where he made deadlines and paid bills; to Jerusalem, where he stared down critics and stood up against cynics. We have our Nazareths as well. And Jesus wasn’t the last to build a team, and accusers didn’t disappear with Jerusalem’s temple. Why seek Jesus’ help with your challenges? Because he’s been there.

But most of all, he’s been to the grave. Not as a visitor, but as a corpse. Body wrapped and grave sealed. Buried. You haven’t yet, but you will be. And since you will, don’t you need someone who knows the way out? God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead — a way to have life that cannot be destroyed.

Colossians 2

I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn’t make any difference. Know that I’m on your side, right alongside you. You’re not in this alone.

2-4 I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or “the Secret.”

5 I’m a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I’m on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ.

From the Shadows to the Substance
6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

16-17 So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.

18-19 Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

20-23 So, then, if with Christ you’ve put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? “Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Don’t go near this!” Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they’re just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Thursday, August 27, 2020

Today's Scripture & Insight:

Psalm 82:3–4

Defend the weak and the fatherless;
    uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Insight
The psalms of Asaph (50; 73–83) take an honest look at the seeming absence of justice on the earth. These songs pose our toughest questions, including: Why do the wicked prosper? and Why do good people suffer? Here in Psalm 82 the pointed question is asked: “How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?” (v. 2). We might interpret that as an accusation against God, but the word translated “you” is plural. The psalmist is targeting his question against unjust judges who “will die like mere mortals; [and] will fall like every other ruler” (v. 7). The psalm affirms God’s sovereignty over all things: “God . . . renders judgment among the ‘gods’” (v. 1) and concludes with an appeal to the Lord to “rise up” and “judge the earth” (v. 8). Despite the pain that motivated this cry for justice, the songwriter knows God can be trusted to make things right.

Rescue the Weak
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82:4

Which would you choose—a skiing holiday in Switzerland or rescuing children from danger in Prague? Nicholas Winton, just an ordinary man, chose the latter. In 1938, war between Czechoslovakia and Germany seemed on the horizon. After Nicholas visited refugee camps in Prague, where many Jewish citizens lived in horrible conditions, he felt compelled to come up with a plan to help. He raised money to transport hundreds of children safely out of Prague to Great Britain to be cared for by British families before the onset of World War II.

His actions exemplified those called for in Psalm 82: “Uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed” (v. 3). Asaph, the writer of this psalm, wanted to stir his people to champion the cause of those in need: “Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (v. 4). Like the children Nicholas worked tirelessly to rescue, the psalmist spoke for those who couldn’t speak for themselves—the poor and the widowed who needed justice and protection.

Everywhere we look today we see people in need due to war, storms, and other hardships. Although we can’t solve every problem, we can prayerfully consider what we can do to help in the situations God brings into our lives. By:  Linda Washington

Reflect & Pray
What are some immediate needs of others you can help meet? How has God uniquely prepared you to rescue and care for others?

Loving God, open my eyes to the needs of those around me.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Living Your Theology

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you… —John 12:35

Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mountaintop with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). The moment you forsake the matter of sanctification or neglect anything else on which God has given you His light, your spiritual life begins to disintegrate within you. Continually bring the truth out into your real life, working it out into every area, or else even the light that you possess will itself prove to be a curse.

The most difficult person to deal with is the one who has the prideful self-satisfaction of a past experience, but is not working that experience out in his everyday life. If you say you are sanctified, show it. The experience must be so genuine that it shows in your life. Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent or self-gratifying; that belief came from the pit of hell itself, regardless of how beautiful it may sound.

Your theology must work itself out, exhibiting itself in your most common everyday relationships. Our Lord said, “…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). In other words, you must be more moral than the most moral person you know. You may know all about the doctrine of sanctification, but are you working it out in the everyday issues of your life? Every detail of your life, whether physical, moral, or spiritual, is to be judged and measured by the standard of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

Bible in a Year: Psalms 120-122; 1 Corinthians 9

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Washing in Water That Cannot Make You Clean - #8772

It was one very hot day, and my granddaughter and I were watching some horses. One-by-one they made their way to the little pond to take in some more water. Now, this big old grey horse decided drinking wasn't enough. He didn't just get a little of the pond in him, he got into the pond and lay down in the water. He splashed around a little, stayed there for a while and finally pulled his big old body out of the water. Relating what she saw to her world, my granddaughter said, "He's taking a bath!" If that was his intention, I had bad news for that horse. He got out of that murky water with his light gray coat covered with dirt! So much for getting clean!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Washing in Water That Cannot Make You Clean."

No matter where you go in the world, no matter how primitive or advanced the culture, we humans have this sense in our soul that we have a problem with the Creator who put us here. In a sense, that's the reason most people practice whatever their religion is; to somehow do something to put us on God's good side to avoid whatever punishment we might deserve for the wrong things we know we've done. All of us have things that we wish we hadn't done and things we know we should have done. We feel the guilt; we feel the shame of things that we thought we would never do; of things that we've done that hurt other people - often people we love.

You might say we know we're dirty inside and that we'd better do something to get clean before we meet the Creator who decides our forever. The Bible tells the story actually of a military leader named Naaman who came down with terminal leprosy: corrosive spots all over his body. He was directed to God's prophet for a cure. He wanted to buy a cure. No way. He wanted to do something noble to be cured. "No way," the prophet said. He told him to wash seven times in the muddy waters of the Jordan River.

Naaman was enraged. There were nicer rivers back home that he wanted to wash in. But there was only one way to get cured and get clean...wash where God said to wash. In the Bible's words, he did "as the man of God told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy" (2 Kings 5:1-16).

We're all Naaman. We want to get right with God the way we want to get right with God: through doing good, through practicing our religion, through personal spirituality. But it's all water that can't make us clean. Here's why recorded in our word for today from the Word of God in Hebrews 9:22, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Sin is punishable by spiritual death. That's eternal separation from a sinless God. So only a death can pay for it. That's why all the religious water in the world will leave you unforgiven and unable to enter God's heaven.

A few verses later, God explains where our only hope really is. He says Jesus died "...to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26). Only Jesus, the only sinless man that ever lived, could die in our place. And He loves you so much that He did - on an awful cross.

So, we have to come to God through the only way He's provided - His Son. Jesus alone can make you clean inside and right before a holy God. Jesus alone can get you into heaven. Not Christianity, not church, but Jesus. No other "water" can make you clean, however sincere your efforts to get clean. If you could have gotten clean any other way, believe me, God would have never put His Son through that brutal crucifixion.

You've got a decision to make: the ultimate life-or-death decision. Will you put your total trust in Jesus, in what He did to pay for your sins on the cross? Or will you put your hope in something else? The outcomes of that decision are heaven or hell, and God leaves it to you to choose. If you're ready to abandon all other hopes and hold onto Jesus like a drowning person would embrace a rescuer, would you tell Him that right now, right where you are? At that moment every wrong thing you've ever done will be forgiven by God and erased from His book. And your name will be entered in His "Book of Life" - the people who are going to be in heaven.

I would love to have you visit our website today, because there I think you'll get a brief explanation of how to be sure you belong to Jesus from this day on. The website is ANewStory.com.

Sin cannot be repaid. It has to be removed. And Jesus stands ready to do that for you this very day, and you will be clean.

Jeremiah 17, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 Max Lucado Daily: OUR FUTURE IN HEAVEN

Something is awry. We feel disconnected. What we hope will bring life brings only limited amounts. We connect with a career and find meaning in family, yet long for something more. First job, then promotion, wedding day, nursery, kids, grandkids. Around and around—is there anything else? Jesus steps forth with a reconnection invitation: “Though we be dead in our transgressions and sins, and separated from the life of God, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (Ephesians 2:5).

Reborn! He breathes life into flat-lined lives. He offers life. Others offer life, but no one offers to do what Jesus does—to reconnect us to life. Peter says, “Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand new life…everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts right now” (1 Peter 1:3-4 The Message).

Jeremiah 17

The Heart Is Hopelessly Dark and Deceitful

“Judah’s sin is engraved
    with a steel chisel,
A steel chisel with a diamond point—
    engraved on their granite hearts,
    engraved on the stone corners of their altars.
The evidence against them is plain to see:
    sex-and-religion altars and sacred sex shrines
Anywhere there’s a grove of trees,
    anywhere there’s an available hill.

3-4 “I’ll use your mountains as roadside stands
    for giving away everything you have.
All your ‘things’ will serve as reparations
    for your sins all over the country.
You’ll lose your gift of land,
    The inheritance I gave you.
I’ll make you slaves of your enemies
    in a far-off and strange land.
My anger is hot and blazing and fierce,
    and no one will put it out.”

5-6 God’s Message:

“Cursed is the strong one
    who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
    and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
    out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
    in a land where nothing grows.

7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
    the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
    putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
    never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
    bearing fresh fruit every season.

9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”

11 Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
    in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
    When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!

12-13 From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
    a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
    All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
    who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
    and wind up dead!

14-18 God, pick up the pieces.
    Put me back together again.
    You are my praise!
Listen to how they talk about me:
    “So where’s this ‘Word of God’?
    We’d like to see something happen!”
But it wasn’t my idea to call for Doomsday.
    I never wanted trouble.
You know what I’ve said.
    It’s all out in the open before you.
Don’t add to my troubles.
    Give me some relief!
Let those who harass me be harassed, not me.
    Let them be disgraced, not me.
Bring down upon them the day of doom.
    Lower the boom. Boom!

Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
19-20 God’s Message to me: “Go stand in the People’s Gate, the one used by Judah’s kings as they come and go, and then proceed in turn to all the gates of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘Listen, you kings of Judah, listen to God’s Message—and all you people who go in and out of these gates, you listen!

21-23 “‘This is God’s Message. Be careful, if you care about your lives, not to desecrate the Sabbath by turning it into just another workday, lugging stuff here and there. Don’t use the Sabbath to do business as usual. Keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. They never did it, as you know. They paid no attention to what I said and went about their own business, refusing to be guided or instructed by me.

24-26 “‘But now, take seriously what I tell you. Quit desecrating the Sabbath by busily going about your own work, and keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing business as usual. Then kings from the time of David and their officials will continue to ride through these gates on horses or in chariots. The people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem will continue to pass through them, too. Jerusalem will always be filled with people. People will stream in from all over Judah, from the province of Benjamin, from the Jerusalem suburbs, from foothills and mountains and deserts. They’ll come to worship, bringing all kinds of offerings—animals, grains, incense, expressions of thanks—into the Sanctuary of God.

27 “‘But if you won’t listen to me, won’t keep the Sabbath holy, won’t quit using the Sabbath for doing your own work, busily going in and out of the city gates on your self-important business, then I’ll burn the gates down. In fact, I’ll burn the whole city down, palaces and all, with a fire nobody will be able to put out!’”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Ephesians 5:8–20

 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper,
    rise from the dead,
    and Christ will shine on you.”

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Insight
Paul calls the believers in Jesus in the church in Ephesus to recognize the times they live in and to act accordingly. They were to “[make] the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). In early Christianity, evil was viewed as a characteristic of the last days—the time period from Christ’s ascension until His return (see 2 Timothy 3:1; 2 Peter 3:3).

The Word Biblical Commentary says, “It is possible that for some of its force, the notion of evil days here retains the implications of its use in the apocalyptic tradition, where these evil days are the last days, are precarious, and will only endure for a limited period. This would produce a sense of urgency about the remaining present and its opportunities.”

Peter is encouraging believers to understand that opportunities to do good are all the more important when we consider that each passing day brings us one day closer to the last day—the day when Jesus returns.

Spiritual Driving
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15–16

I don’t remember many specifics about my driver’s education class. But for some reason, an acronym we learned, S-I-P-D-E, remains firmly lodged in my memory.

The letters stood for Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, and Execute, a process we were taught to practice continually. We were to scan the road, identify hazards, predict what the hazards might do, decide how we’d respond, and then, if necessary, execute that plan. It was a strategy for being intentional to avoid accidents.  

I wonder how that idea might translate to our spiritual lives. In Ephesians 5, Paul told Ephesian believers, “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise, but as wise” (v. 15). Paul knew certain hazards could derail the Ephesians—old ways of living at odds with their new life in Jesus (vv. 8, 10–11). So he instructed the growing church to pay attention.

The words translated “be very careful, then, how you live” literally mean “see how you walk.” In other words, look around. Notice hazards, and avoid personal pitfalls like drunkenness and wild living (v. 18). Instead, the apostle said, we can seek to learn God’s will for our lives (v. 17), while, with fellow believers, we sing to and give Him thanks (vv. 19–20).

No matter what hazards we face—and even when we stumble—we can experience our new life in Christ as we grow in dependence on His boundless power and grace. By:  Adam R. Holz

Reflect & Pray
What strategy do you use to recognize what might trip you up spiritually? What role do you think other believers play in identifying and resisting spiritual hazards? How might thanksgiving be an important part of avoiding spiritual pitfalls?

Heavenly Father, as I navigate the spiritual potholes on life’s road, thank You for reminding me to look up to You for help.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Are You Ever Troubled?

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you… —John 14:27

There are times in our lives when our peace is based simply on our own ignorance. But when we are awakened to the realities of life, true inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He creates peace, because the words that He speaks are always “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “…My peace I give to you…”— a peace that comes from looking into His face and fully understanding and receiving His quiet contentment.

Are you severely troubled right now? Are you afraid and confused by the waves and the turbulence God sovereignly allows to enter your life? Have you left no stone of your faith unturned, yet still not found any well of peace, joy, or comfort? Does your life seem completely barren to you? Then look up and receive the quiet contentment of the Lord Jesus. Reflecting His peace is proof that you are right with God, because you are exhibiting the freedom to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. Allowing anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you either causes you to become troubled or gives you a false sense of security.

With regard to the problem that is pressing in on you right now, are you “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) and receiving peace from Him? If so, He will be a gracious blessing of peace exhibited in and through you. But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get. We become troubled because we have not been taking Him into account. When a person confers with Jesus Christ, the confusion stops, because there is no confusion in Him. Lay everything out before Him, and when you are faced with difficulty, bereavement, and sorrow, listen to Him say, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:27).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R

Bible in a Year: Psalms 119:89-176; 1 Corinthians 8

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Undelivered Messages - #8773

When all our family was at home, I'd walk in the door to our house, and I'd be greeted by a lot of phone messages. And sometimes I didn't get the messages. Frustrating! Depended on who takes the message, how busy they were when they got the message, what there is to write with, what there is to write on, and of course you can also depend on where it gets set down, and also what gets set down on top of it. Well, I'm glad for cell phones; a new day dawned. But, boy, in those days, whew! II used to shudder when someone called me and said, "You know, I tried to reach you a couple of times." And I'd say, "Uh, I didn't get the message." "Well, I left one." And then they'd say, "No problem. It's too late now." Oh great! That usually led to a, shall we say, warm conversation with somebody in my family. I mean, after all, you expect messages to be delivered.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Undelivered Messages."

God's trying to send us a message. He's been calling and somehow it's not getting delivered. And we are the ones who are misplacing it somewhere. The message? Oh, our word for today from the Word of God, John 16:8 - "When the comforter" - by the way, that's the Holy Spirit - "comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." Now, right here we're told the three messages God wants the world to get. When the Holy Spirit comes, these are the messages He'll be leaving, just like those phone messages for me.

One is the seriousness of our sin. The second one is the priority of righteous living, and the third is the reality of judgment. God's three messages: sin, righteous living, and judgment. Now, if you have heard a lot of messages about these subjects, well, you might be in the minority, because we don't talk too much about that part of the Christian message. Oh, we like messages about God's love, and how He'll always forgive us, and help us with our problems, and He'll accept us no matter what, and our self-worth. And that's all part of the Christian message.

But it isn't all warm, fuzzy and cozy. There are some life-saving messages that someone is not delivering. And if we don't do it, no one else will. We are the only ones with the truth. The Holy Spirit's messages about sin; are we delivering it? Sin isn't just mistakes, or "I have a weakness," or personal preferences, or poor judgment. Sin is a direct violation of the laws of a Holy God.

Teenagers aren't sexually active; they're sinning the sin of fornication - immorality. They're defiling God's beautiful gift. Men and women aren't having "affairs." They're committing adultery. Lying is lying. Gossip is gossip. We don't help people when we pull punches on the ugliness of rebelling against God.

Secondly, the message is righteousness - not a cool buttoned-down Christianity, but passion and purity. Not just the privileges of the Gospel, but the demands of it. We need to measure how we're doing by the character of Jesus, not by comparing ourselves with the world around us or even the folks at church.

And the third message the Holy Spirit is delivering to the world is judgment. The bill does come. There's a place called hell where people are separated from God because they sinned and they did not receive the One who died for their sins - our Jesus. If Christians are silent, no one's going to ever know these things. We are charged to deliver this message to our children, to our friends, and all the people we minister to.

God has called and He's left us a destiny message. Now it's in your care. Please, be sure it gets delivered.

Jeremiah 16 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: MAKE THE CHOICE

Spend a lifetime telling God to be quiet, and He will do just that. In hell, God honors our request for silence. Hell is not a correctional facility or reform school. Its members hear no candid sermons. They do not hear the Spirit of God, or the voice of God, or the voice of God’s people. In Ezekiel 33:11 God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

It is not God’s will that any should perish, but the fact that some do highlights God’s justice. God must punish sin. Thanks to Christ, this earth can be the nearest you come to hell. But apart from Christ, this earth is the nearest you come to heaven. John 3:16 says, “whoever believes in him shall not perish…” God makes the offer, but we make the choice. What’s your choice?

Jeremiah 16

Can Mortals Manufacture Gods?

God’s Message to me:

2-4 “Jeremiah, don’t get married. Don’t raise a family here. I have signed the death warrant on all the children born in this country, the mothers who bear them and the fathers who beget them—an epidemic of death. Death unlamented, the dead unburied, dead bodies decomposing and stinking like dung, all the killed and starved corpses served up as meals for carrion crows and mongrel dogs!”

5-7 God continued: “Don’t enter a house where there’s mourning. Don’t go to the funeral. Don’t sympathize. I’ve quit caring about what happens to this people.” God’s Decree. “No more loyal love on my part, no more compassion. The famous and obscure will die alike here, unlamented and unburied. No funerals will be conducted, no one will give them a second thought, no one will care, no one will say, ‘I’m sorry,’ no one will so much as offer a cup of tea, not even for the mother or father.

8 “And if there happens to be a feast celebrated, don’t go there either to enjoy the festivities.”

9 God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Watch this! I’m about to banish smiles and laughter from this place. No more brides and bridegrooms celebrating. And I’m doing it in your lifetime, before your very eyes.

10-13 “When you tell this to the people and they ask, ‘Why is God talking this way, threatening us with all these calamities? We’re not criminals, after all. What have we done to our God to be treated like this?’ tell them this: ‘It’s because your ancestors left me, walked off and never looked back. They took up with the no-gods, worshiped and doted on them, and ignored me and wouldn’t do a thing I told them. And you’re even worse! Take a good look in the mirror—each of you doing whatever you want, whenever you want, refusing to pay attention to me. And for this I’m getting rid of you, throwing you out in the cold, into a far and strange country. You can worship your precious no-gods there to your heart’s content. Rest assured, I won’t bother you anymore.’

14-15 “On the other hand, don’t miss this: The time is coming when no one will say any longer, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who delivered Israel from Egypt.’ What they’ll say is, ‘As sure as God lives, the God who brought Israel back from the land of the north, brought them back from all the places where he’d scattered them.’ That’s right, I’m going to bring them back to the land I first gave to their ancestors.

16-17 “Now, watch for what comes next: I’m going to assemble a bunch of fishermen.” God’s Decree! “They’ll go fishing for my people and pull them in for judgment. Then I’ll send out a party of hunters, and they’ll hunt them out in all the mountains, hills, and caves. I’m watching their every move. I haven’t lost track of a single one of them, neither them nor their sins.

18 “They won’t get by with a thing. They’ll pay double for everything they did wrong. They’ve made a complete mess of things, littering their lives with their obscene no-gods, leaving piles of stinking god-junk all over the place.”

19-20 God, my strength, my stronghold,
    my safe retreat when trouble descends:
The godless nations will come
    from earth’s four corners, saying,
“Our ancestors lived on lies,
    useless illusions, all smoke.”
Can mortals manufacture gods?
    Their factories turn out no-gods!

21 “Watch closely now. I’m going to teach these wrongheaded people.
    Starting right now, I’m going to teach them
Who I am and what I do,
    teach them the meaning of my name, God—‘I Am.’”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 119:17–24

 Gimel

Be good to your servant while I live,
    that I may obey your word.
18 Open my eyes that I may see
    wonderful things in your law.
19 I am a stranger on earth;
    do not hide your commands from me.
20 My soul is consumed with longing
    for your laws at all times.
21 You rebuke the arrogant, who are accursed,
    those who stray from your commands.
22 Remove from me their scorn and contempt,
    for I keep your statutes.
23 Though rulers sit together and slander me,
    your servant will meditate on your decrees.
24 Your statutes are my delight;
    they are my counselors.

Insight
This great acrostic poem celebrating the revelation of God’s law is an easily recognizable passage of Scripture. But due to its length (176 verses), it’s often studied only a portion at a time. Acrostic poems use the repetition of letters and sounds at the beginning of each couplet. This is one of the many literary devices that Hebrew authors used in these hymns. Others include metaphor, simile, and parallelism. Hebrew poets used these elements to enhance and emphasize the message of their poetry.

To learn how to get the most out of your study of the Bible, visit christianuniversity.org/sf106.

Wonderful Reward
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. Psalm 119:18

Donelan, a teacher, had always been a reader, but one day it literally paid off. She was planning a trip and reviewing her lengthy travel insurance policy when on page seven she discovered a wonderful reward. As part of their “It Pays to Read” contest, the company was giving $10,000 to the first person to read that far into the contract. They also donated thousands of dollars to schools in Donelan’s area for children’s literacy. She says, “I’ve always been that nerd who reads contracts. I was the most surprised of anyone!”

The psalmist wanted his eyes opened to “see wonderful things” about God (Psalm 119:18). He must have had an understanding that God wants to be known, and so he longed for a deeper closeness to Him. His desire was to see more of who God is, what He’d already given, and how to follow Him more closely (vv. 24, 98). He wrote, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long” (v. 97).

We too have the privilege of taking time to ponder God, His character, and His provisions—to learn about and grow closer to Him. God longs to instruct us, guide us, and open our hearts to who He is. When we search for Him, He rewards us with greater wonder at who He is and the enjoyment of His presence! By:  Anne Cetas

Reflect & Pray
As you open your Bible and read, how is your heart and mind opened to God and His ways? What would you like to know or experience more of?

How I love Your Word, God. It’s sweet to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Sacrifice and Friendship
I have called you friends… —John 15:15

We will never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we surrender in every detail of our lives. Yet self-surrender is the most difficult thing for us to do. We make it conditional by saying, “I’ll surrender if…!” Or we approach it by saying, “I suppose I have to devote my life to God.” We will never find the joy of self-sacrifice in either of these ways.

But as soon as we do totally surrender, abandoning ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us a taste of His joy. The ultimate goal of self-sacrifice is to lay down our lives for our Friend (see John 15:13-14). When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, our greatest desire is to lay down our lives for Jesus. Yet the thought of self-sacrifice never even crosses our minds, because sacrifice is the Holy Spirit’s ultimate expression of love.

Our Lord is our example of a life of self-sacrifice, and He perfectly exemplified Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do Your will, O my God….” He endured tremendous personal sacrifice, yet with overflowing joy. Have I ever yielded myself in absolute submission to Jesus Christ? If He is not the One to whom I am looking for direction and guidance, then there is no benefit in my sacrifice. But when my sacrifice is made with my eyes focused on Him, slowly but surely His molding influence becomes evident in my life (see Hebrews 12:1-2).

Beware of letting your natural desires hinder your walk in love before God. One of the cruelest ways to kill natural love is through the rejection that results from having built the love on natural desires. But the one true desire of a saint is the Lord Jesus. Love for God is not something sentimental or emotional— for a saint to love as God loves is the most practical thing imaginable.

“I have called you friends….” Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created in us, which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God. It is a life that is completely humble, pure, and devoted to God.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child.  Not Knowing Whither, 882 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 119:1-88; 1 Corinthians 7:20-40

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Washing in Water That Cannot Make You Clean - #8772

It was one very hot day, and my granddaughter and I were watching some horses. One-by-one they made their way to the little pond to take in some more water. Now, this big old grey horse decided drinking wasn't enough. He didn't just get a little of the pond in him, he got into the pond and lay down in the water. He splashed around a little, stayed there for a while and finally pulled his big old body out of the water. Relating what she saw to her world, my granddaughter said, "He's taking a bath!" If that was his intention, I had bad news for that horse. He got out of that murky water with his light gray coat covered with dirt! So much for getting clean!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Washing in Water That Cannot Make You Clean."

No matter where you go in the world, no matter how primitive or advanced the culture, we humans have this sense in our soul that we have a problem with the Creator who put us here. In a sense, that's the reason most people practice whatever their religion is; to somehow do something to put us on God's good side to avoid whatever punishment we might deserve for the wrong things we know we've done. All of us have things that we wish we hadn't done and things we know we should have done. We feel the guilt; we feel the shame of things that we thought we would never do; of things that we've done that hurt other people - often people we love.

You might say we know we're dirty inside and that we'd better do something to get clean before we meet the Creator who decides our forever. The Bible tells the story actually of a military leader named Naaman who came down with terminal leprosy: corrosive spots all over his body. He was directed to God's prophet for a cure. He wanted to buy a cure. No way. He wanted to do something noble to be cured. "No way," the prophet said. He told him to wash seven times in the muddy waters of the Jordan River.

Naaman was enraged. There were nicer rivers back home that he wanted to wash in. But there was only one way to get cured and get clean...wash where God said to wash. In the Bible's words, he did "as the man of God told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy" (2 Kings 5:1-16).

We're all Naaman. We want to get right with God the way we want to get right with God: through doing good, through practicing our religion, through personal spirituality. But it's all water that can't make us clean. Here's why recorded in our word for today from the Word of God in Hebrews 9:22, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Sin is punishable by spiritual death. That's eternal separation from a sinless God. So only a death can pay for it. That's why all the religious water in the world will leave you unforgiven and unable to enter God's heaven.

A few verses later, God explains where our only hope really is. He says Jesus died "...to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26). Only Jesus, the only sinless man that ever lived, could die in our place. And He loves you so much that He did - on an awful cross.

So, we have to come to God through the only way He's provided - His Son. Jesus alone can make you clean inside and right before a holy God. Jesus alone can get you into heaven. Not Christianity, not church, but Jesus. No other "water" can make you clean, however sincere your efforts to get clean. If you could have gotten clean any other way, believe me, God would have never put His Son through that brutal crucifixion.

You've got a decision to make: the ultimate life-or-death decision. Will you put your total trust in Jesus, in what He did to pay for your sins on the cross? Or will you put your hope in something else? The outcomes of that decision are heaven or hell, and God leaves it to you to choose. If you're ready to abandon all other hopes and hold onto Jesus like a drowning person would embrace a rescuer, would you tell Him that right now, right where you are? At that moment every wrong thing you've ever done will be forgiven by God and erased from His book. And your name will be entered in His "Book of Life" - the people who are going to be in heaven.

I would love to have you visit our website today, because there I think you'll get a brief explanation of how to be sure you belong to Jesus from this day on. The website is ANewStory.com.

Sin cannot be repaid. It has to be removed. And Jesus stands ready to do that for you this very day, and you will be clean.

Jeremiah 15 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: BELIEVE IN HIM

Some historians clump Christ with Moses, Muhammad, Confucius, and other spiritual leaders. But Jesus refuses to share the page. In John 14:6 Jesus declares, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” He could have scored more points in political correctness had he said, “I know the way,” or “I show the way.” Yet he speaks not of what he does but of who he is: “I am the way!”

His disciple Peter announced, “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Believe in yourself? No, believe in him. Believe in them? No, believe in him. And John 3:16 promises to those who believe in him “they shall not perish but have eternal life.” Believe in him. Believe in the One He sent!

Jeremiah 15

Then God said to me: “Jeremiah, even if Moses and Samuel stood here and made their case, I wouldn’t feel a thing for this people. Get them out of here. Tell them to get lost! And if they ask you, ‘So where do we go?’ tell them God says,

“‘If you’re assigned to die, go and die;
    if assigned to war, go and get killed;
If assigned to starve, go starve;
    if assigned to exile, off to exile you go!’

3-4 “I’ve arranged for four kinds of punishment: death in battle, the corpses dropped off by killer dogs, the rest picked clean by vultures, the bones gnawed by hyenas. They’ll be a sight to see, a sight to shock the whole world—and all because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah and all he did in Jerusalem.

5 “Who do you think will feel sorry for you, Jerusalem?
    Who do you think will waste tears on you?
Who will bother to take the time to ask,
    ‘So, how are things going?’

6-9 “You left me, remember?” God’s Decree.
    “You turned your back and walked out.
So I will grab you and hit you hard.
    I’m tired of letting you off the hook.
I threw you to the four winds
    and let the winds scatter you like leaves.
I made sure you’ll lose everything,
    since nothing makes you change.
I created more widows among you
    than grains of sand on the ocean beaches.
At noon mothers will get the news
    of their sons killed in action.
Sudden anguish for the mothers—
    all those terrible deaths.
A mother of seven falls to the ground,
    gasping for breath,
Robbed of her children in their prime.
    Her sun sets at high noon!
Then I’ll round up any of you that are left alive
    and see that you’re killed by your enemies.”
        God’s Decree.

Giving Everything Away for Nothing
10-11 Unlucky mother—that you had me as a son,
    given the unhappy job of indicting the whole country!
I’ve never hurt or harmed a soul,
    and yet everyone is out to get me.
But, God knows, I’ve done everything I could to help them,
    prayed for them and against their enemies.
I’ve always been on their side, trying to stave off disaster.
    God knows how I’ve tried!

12-14 “O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances
    against the iron juggernaut from the north?
In punishment for your sins, I’m giving away
    everything you’ve got, giving it away for nothing.
I’ll make you slaves to your enemies
    in a strange and far-off land.
My anger is blazing and fierce,
    burning in hot judgment against you.”

15-18 You know where I am, God! Remember what I’m doing here!
    Take my side against my detractors.
Don’t stand back while they ruin me.
    Just look at the abuse I’m taking!
When your words showed up, I ate them—
    swallowed them whole. What a feast!
What delight I took in being yours,
    O God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I never joined the party crowd
    in their laughter and their fun.
Led by you, I went off by myself.
    You’d filled me with indignation. Their sin had me seething.
But why, why this chronic pain,
    this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight?
You’re nothing, God, but a mirage,
    a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing!

19-21 This is how God answered me:

“Take back those words, and I’ll take you back.
    Then you’ll stand tall before me.
Use words truly and well. Don’t stoop to cheap whining.
    Then, but only then, you’ll speak for me.
Let your words change them.
    Don’t change your words to suit them.
I’ll turn you into a steel wall,
    a thick steel wall, impregnable.
They’ll attack you but won’t put a dent in you
    because I’m at your side, defending and delivering.”
        God’s Decree.
“I’ll deliver you from the grip of the wicked.
    I’ll get you out of the clutch of the ruthless.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, August 24, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Job 2:1–10

On another day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”

4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

6 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish[b] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

Insight
Job 1–2 are filled with mystery, often prompting questions for which we have no answers. What’s the nature of the heavenly council meeting described in these chapters? Why was Satan allowed to participate? Why did God allow Job to suffer in such extreme ways? These are difficult questions, but what’s certain is that even in his suffering, Job wasn’t abandoned by God—and his harsh experiences were used by Him.

To explore this further, read Out of the Ashes: God’s Presence in Job’s Pain at discoveryseries.org/q0735.

How Did I Get Here?
Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? Job 2:10

Tiffani awoke in the pitch-black darkness of an Air Canada jet. Still wearing her seat belt, she’d slept while the other passengers exited and the plane was parked. Why didn’t anyone wake her? How did she get here? She shook the cobwebs from her brain and tried to remember.

Have you found yourself in a place you never expected? You’re too young to have this disease, and there’s no cure. Your last review was excellent; why is your position being eliminated? You were enjoying the best years of your marriage. Now you’re starting over, as a single parent with a part-time job.

How did I get here? Job may have wondered as “he sat among the ashes” (Job 2:8). He’d lost his children, his wealth, and his health, in no time flat. He couldn’t have guessed how he got here; he just knew he had to remember.

Job remembered his Creator and how good He’d been. He told his wife, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (v. 10). Job remembered he could count on this good God to be faithful. So he lamented. He screamed at the heavens. And he mourned in hope, “I know that my redeemer lives,” and that “in my flesh I will see God” (19:25–26). Job clung to hope as he remembered how the story began and how it ends. By:  Mike Wittmer

Reflect & Pray
What situation fills you with agony and dread? How might you regain your bearings and live with hope and joy?

Father, You’re not surprised by what surprises me. You were good before, and You remain good now.

To learn more about the book of Job and its message, visit bit.ly/337DURd.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 24, 2020
The Spiritual Search
What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? —Matthew 7:9

The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God’s will to give you what you ask. Don’t faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a “good child” in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, “I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings”? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a “good child.”

We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God’s child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).

I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong— a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, “Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We all have the trick of saying—If only I were not where I am!—If only I had not got the kind of people I have to live with! If our faith or our religion does not help us in the conditions we are in, we have either a further struggle to go through, or we had better abandon that faith and religion.  The Shadow of an Agony, 1178 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 116-118; 1 Corinthians 7:1-19

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 24, 2020
Checking the Contents - #8771

I guess I'm sort of an Energizer driver. I mean on a trip, if I have to, I can just keep going, and going and going. Of course, I need some help staying alert every once in a while: music, air, food, especially food. I must confess, though, that carrots and celery are not my idea of an exciting snack to keep you going. Now, you know, when we've stopped for gas over the years, one mile from empty of course, I've gone into the little food store and picked up a pack of those donuts or cupcakes or fruit pies. Nourishing stuff - health food, you know. I'm speaking in the past tense now. I have joined the "think about what you're putting into your body" movement that a lot of folks are in these days. Food manufacturers have to put this little label on their products now that tells you what's in those tempting little snacks. Now I check that before I buy it. I cannot believe the fat grams, the calories, the sodium and the cholesterol. Hello artery clog, hello high blood pressure, hello cholesterol, triple bypass surgery. A lot of food companies have figured out that trend, and that's why you see more and more products that are low-fat, no-fat, low-cholesterol, no taste. Actually, that contents list is a great thing for all of us. A lot of us aren't making our food decisions based on just how good it tastes or our appetite. We care about what's in the things that are about to be in us!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Checking the Contents."

It's good to pay attention to the contents before you put something in your mouth, or in your mind. When God tells us what it means to make Jesus Lord of our thoughts, of our mind He puts it this way. It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Philippians 4:8, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things."

That's God's diet plan for your heart. And notice the deciding factor in whether you should watch or listen to or read something. It's the content! Not if it's funny, not if it's clever, not if it's entertaining, not if you like the tune, not if it's something "everyone" is seeing or listening to or not if you like the style. I can't afford to pick what I eat just based on whether I like the taste. I could have an early date with a heart specialist or an undertaker that way. No, I have to decide based on whether or not the contents of this taste treat are unhealthy.

That's how your Savior wants you to decide what you read or watch or listen to. Look at the contents. Think about some of your favorite TV programs, your favorite music, websites, magazines, books you read, movies you go to, the humor you listen to. Does it pass God's test for what gets into your heart? Is it something to be admired? Is it pure? Is it something Jesus would feel comfortable with? Is it something He would laugh at, that He would recommend? Does it portray God's ways or sinful ways? Is it clean or is it suggestive? Is it positive or negative?

God cares about what you're "eating" mentally. He makes it very clear. And He says this in Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart because it is the wellspring of life." If an animal happens to fall in a well and dies, it will pollute the drinks that come out of that well. It's the same with your mind. If you allow something polluted or dead in there, it will continue to contaminate the well for a long time. That's why we have such a hard time forgetting a dirty joke or a movie scene for so long. Sin-stained stuff makes a deeper impression than we could ever imagine. So long after the song is off the charts or the show is over, the pollution planted by them will live in your heart and continue to poison your thoughts and your desires.

God has called us to become new people by, He says, the "renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:1). It's hard to make your sin-polluted mind new and clean when you keep pumping in more garbage. If you want to be all you were meant to be in Christ, then pay attention to what you're putting in your mind. The package may be very attractive, the taste may be exciting, but the contents may be deadly. And for a disciple of Jesus, the contents settle whether it's going in you or not.

Colossians 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God is Our Guide

I can get lost anywhere.  Seriously.  Anywhere. I once got lost in my hotel.  I told the receptionist my key wasn't working.  I'd been on the wrong floor trying to open the wrong door. If geese had my sense of direction, they'd spend winters in Alaska. Can you relate?  Of course you can. We've all scratched our heads a time or two. Do I take the job, or leave it? One of life's giant-size questions is "How can I know what God wants me to do?"
In 2 Samuel 2:1 David inquires of the Lord: "Shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah?"
"Go up."
David said, "Where shall I go up?"
He made a habit of running his options past God. We do the same and the God who guided David guides you.  Are you like me?  Do you get confused?  Psalm 32:8 is the promise you need: God says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life."  We all need that promise, don't we?
from Facing Your Giant

Colossians 1
 I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ as part of God’s master plan. Together with my friend Timothy, I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colosse. May everything good from God our Father be yours!

Working in His Orchard
3-5 Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can’t quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.

5-8 The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn’t diminish or weaken over time. It’s the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you’ve been hungry for more. It’s as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him. He’s the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.

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.

13-14 God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.

Christ Holds It All Together
15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

21-23 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.

24-25 I want you to know how glad I am that it’s me sitting here in this jail and not you. There’s a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world—the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church’s part of that suffering. When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God’s way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.

26-29 This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Psalm 130 (NIV)

A song of ascents.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
2     Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
    for with the Lord is unfailing love
    and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
    from all their sins.

Insight
Psalm 130 mentions both redemption and forgiveness: with God “there is forgiveness” and “full redemption” (vv. 4, 7). Do these words have the same meaning? According to the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, the Hebrew root verb for redemption used in this psalm has a legal context and is used “when an animal substitutes (or redeems) a person or another animal.” In the theological context, it indicates “a freeing from the slavery of sin, the ransom or price paid for freedom.” Jesus provided this ransom through His death on the cross, giving His life “as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). We can be forgiven (or pardoned) for our sin because of Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross. When we come to God in repentance (sorrow for our sin), God forgives and releases us (sinners, wrongdoers) from judgment and the penalty for our sins, which is eternal separation from Him.

No Fishing Allowed
[God will] hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19

Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom knew the importance of forgiveness. In her book Tramp for the Lord, she says her favorite mental picture was of forgiven sins thrown into the sea. “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. . . . I believe God then places a sign out there that says No Fishing Allowed.”

She points to an important truth that believers in Jesus can sometimes fail to grasp—when God forgives our wrongdoing, we’re forgiven fully! We don’t have to keep dredging up our shameful deeds, wallowing in any mucky feelings. Rather we can accept His grace and forgiveness, following Him in freedom.

We see this idea of “no fishing allowed” in Psalm 130. The psalmist proclaims that although God is just, He forgives the sin of those who repent: “But with you there is forgiveness” (v. 4). As the psalmist waits for God, putting his trust in Him (v. 5), he states in faith that He “himself will redeem Israel from all their sins” (v. 8). Those who believe will find “full redemption” (v. 7).

When we’re caught in feelings of shame and unworthiness, we can’t serve God with our whole hearts. Instead, we’re restricted by our past. If you feel stymied by the wrong you’ve done, ask God to help you fully believe in His gift of forgiveness and new life. He’s cast your sins into the ocean! By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray
Are you holding on to the false belief that God can’t possibly forgive you for some sin in your life? God wants you to allow His forgiveness to set you free!

Forgiving God, You sent Your Son Jesus to save me from my sins and shame. Help me to live in the freedom of being fully forgiven.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”

When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6

Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ.  My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R

Bible in a Year: Psalms 113-115; 1 Corinthians 6

Jeremiah 14, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Our Reluctance

Perhaps the most amazing response to God's gift is our reluctance to accept it. We feel better if we earn it. So we create religious hoops and hop through them-making God a trainer, us his pets, and religion a circus.
If only, when God smiles and says we are saved, we'd salute him, thank him, and live like those who've just received a gift from the commander in chief. We seldom do that, though. To accept grace is to admit failure. We opt to impress God with how good we are rather than confessing how great he is. We dizzy ourselves with doctrine.  Burden ourselves with rules. We think that God will smile on our efforts. But He doesn't. God's smile is not for the healthy hiker who boasts that he made the journey alone. It is, instead, for the crippled leper who begs God for a back on which to ride!
From In the Eye of the Storm

Jeremiah 14

Time and Again We’ve Betrayed God

 God’s Message that came to Jeremiah regarding the drought:

“Judah weeps,
    her cities mourn.
The people fall to the ground, moaning,
    while sounds of Jerusalem’s sobs rise up, up.
The rich people sent their servants for water.
    They went to the cisterns, but the cisterns were dry.
They came back with empty buckets,
    wringing their hands, shaking their heads.
All the farm work has stopped.
    Not a drop of rain has fallen.
The farmers don’t know what to do.
    They wring their hands, they shake their heads.
Even the doe abandons her fawn in the field
    because there is no grass—
Eyes glazed over, on her last legs,
    nothing but skin and bones.”

7-9 We know we’re guilty. We’ve lived bad lives—
    but do something, God. Do it for your sake!
Time and time again we’ve betrayed you.
    No doubt about it—we’ve sinned against you.
Hope of Israel! Our only hope!
    Israel’s last chance in this trouble!
Why are you acting like a tourist,
    taking in the sights, here today and gone tomorrow?
Why do you just stand there and stare,
    like someone who doesn’t know what to do in a crisis?
But God, you are, in fact, here, here with us!
    You know who we are—you named us!
    Don’t leave us in the lurch.

10 Then God said of these people:

“Since they loved to wander this way and that,
    never giving a thought to where they were going,
I will now have nothing more to do with them—
    except to note their guilt and punish their sins.”

The Killing Fields
11-12 God said to me, “Don’t pray that everything will turn out all right for this people. When they skip their meals in order to pray, I won’t listen to a thing they say. When they redouble their prayers, bringing all kinds of offerings from their herds and crops, I’ll not accept them. I’m finishing them off with war and famine and disease.”

13 I said, “But Master, God! Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right—no war and no famine—that there’s nothing to worry about.”

14 Then God said, “These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.

15-16 “So this is my verdict on them: All the preachers who preach using my name as their text, preachers I never sent in the first place, preachers who say, ‘War and famine will never come here’—these preachers will die in war and by starvation. And the people to whom they’ve been preaching will end up as corpses, victims of war and starvation, thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem unburied—no funerals for them or their wives or their children! I’ll make sure they get the full brunt of all their evil.

17-18 “And you, Jeremiah, will say this to them:

“‘My eyes pour out tears.
    Day and night, the tears never quit.
My dear, dear people are battered and bruised,
    hopelessly and cruelly wounded.
I walk out into the fields,
    shocked by the killing fields strewn with corpses.
I walk into the city,
    shocked by the sight of starving bodies.
And I watch the preachers and priests
    going about their business as if nothing’s happened!’”

19-22 God, have you said your final No to Judah?
    Can you simply not stand Zion any longer?
If not, why have you treated us like this,
    beaten us nearly to death?
We hoped for peace—
    nothing good came from it;
We looked for healing—
    and got kicked in the stomach.
We admit, O God, how badly we’ve lived,
    and our ancestors, how bad they were.
We’ve sinned, they’ve sinned,
    we’ve all sinned against you!
Your reputation is at stake! Don’t quit on us!
    Don’t walk out and abandon your glorious Temple!
Remember your covenant.
    Don’t break faith with us!
Can the no-gods of the godless nations cause rain?
    Can the sky water the earth by itself?
You’re the one, O God, who does this.
    So you’re the one for whom we wait.
You made it all,
    you do it all.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Galatians 6:7–10

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Insight
The Greek word sarx is used eighteen times in Galatians and is variously translated depending on the context. In Galatians, the word first appears in 1:16, where it’s translated “human being” (niv) or “anyone” (esv). These words are a combination of the words “flesh and blood” found in the King James Version and refer to the physical constituents of our humanity. On the other hand, the final occurrence of sarx in Galatians 6 is translated “flesh” (vv. 8, 12, 13). This term refers to mankind’s internal human nature apart from the influence of God and His Word. In this regard, Galatians 5:16–21 provides the reader with a fitting commentary on Galatians 6:8.

Faithful Until the Harvest
Let us not become weary in doing good. Galatians 6:9

A woman I know planned an event at a local park and invited all the neighborhood children to participate. She was excited about the opportunity to share her faith with her neighbors.

She recruited her three grandchildren and two high school students to help her, gave the assignments, planned a number of games and other activities, prepared food, prepared a Bible story about Jesus to present to the children, and waited for them to gather.

Not a single child showed up the first day. Or the second day. Or the third day. Yet, each day my friend went through that day’s activities with her grandchildren and helpers.

On the fourth day, she noticed a family picnicking nearby and invited the children to join in the games. One little girl came, entered into the fun, ate with them, and listened to the story about Jesus. Perhaps years from now she’ll remember. Who knows what the outcome will be? God, through the book of Galatians, encourages us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people” (6:9–10).

Don’t worry about numbers or other visible measures of success. Our job is to be faithful to what He wants us to do and then leave the harvest to Him. God determines the outcomes. By:  David H. Roper

Reflect & Pray
What best-laid plans of yours have gone wrong? How can you learn to trust God with the outcome despite disappointment?

God, I’m grateful that You’re the one in charge of the results. You’re the one at work. Help me to do what You ask no matter what.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 22, 2020
“I Indeed. . . But He”

I indeed baptize you with water…but He…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. —Matthew 3:11

Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, “I indeed…but He…”? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more— but He begins right there— He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.

Repentance does not cause a sense of sin— it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you….” The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.

“I indeed” was this in the past, “but He” came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples.  Approved Unto God, 11 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 110-112; 1 Corinthians 5

Jeremiah 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: BELIEVERS ARE SEALED BY GOD

As a parent, when our children stumble, we don’t disown them. We may punish or reprimand, but cast them out of the family?  We cannot!  They are biologically connected to us. Those born with our DNA will die with it.

God, our Father, engenders the same relationship with us. Upon salvation we become as John 1:12 says, “children of God.” He alters our lineage, redefines our spiritual parenthood, and in doing so, secures our salvation.

Paul says, “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). And a soul sealed by God is safe! God paid too high a price to leave us unguarded.  Again, a reminder from Paul in Ephesians 4:30, “He has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.” What a difference this assurance makes!

Jeremiah 10

The Stick Gods

Listen to the Message that God is sending your way, House of Israel. Listen most carefully:

“Don’t take the godless nations as your models.
    Don’t be impressed by their glamour and glitz,
    no matter how much they’re impressed.
The religion of these peoples
    is nothing but smoke.
An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down,
    then shaped by a woodsman’s ax.
They trim it with tinsel and balls,
    use hammer and nails to keep it upright.
It’s like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch—can’t talk!
    Dead wood that has to be carried—can’t walk!
Don’t be impressed by such stuff.
    It’s useless for either good or evil.”

6-9 All this is nothing compared to you, O God.
    You’re wondrously great, famously great.
Who can fail to be impressed by you, King of the nations?
    It’s your very nature to be worshiped!
Look far and wide among the elite of the nations.
    The best they can come up with is nothing compared to you.
Stupidly, they line them up—a lineup of sticks,
    good for nothing but making smoke.
Gilded with silver foil from Tarshish,
    covered with gold from Uphaz,
Hung with violet and purple fabrics—
    no matter how fancy the sticks, they’re still sticks.

10 But God is the real thing—
    the living God, the eternal King.
When he’s angry, Earth shakes.
    Yes, and the godless nations quake.

11-15 “Tell them this, ‘The stick gods
    who made nothing, neither sky nor earth,
Will come to nothing
    on the earth and under the sky.’”
But it is God whose power made the earth,
    whose wisdom gave shape to the world,
    who crafted the cosmos.
He thunders, and rain pours down.
    He sends the clouds soaring.
He embellishes the storm with lightnings,
    launches wind from his warehouse.
Stick-god worshipers looking mighty foolish,
    god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods!
Their gods are frauds—dead sticks,
    deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.
    When the fires of judgment come, they’ll be ashes.

16 But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing.
    He put the whole universe together
And pays special attention to Israel.
    His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

17-18 Grab your bags,
    all you who are under attack.
God has given notice:
    “Attention! I’m evicting
Everyone who lives here,
    And right now—yes, right now!
I’m going to press them to the limit,
    squeeze the life right out of them.”

19-20 But it’s a black day for me!
    Hopelessly wounded,
I said, “Why, oh why
    did I think I could bear it?”
My house is ruined—
    the roof caved in.
Our children are gone—
    we’ll never see them again.
No one left to help in rebuilding,
    no one to make a new start!

21 It’s because our leaders are stupid.
    They never asked God for counsel,
And so nothing worked right.
    The people are scattered all over.

22 But listen! Something’s coming!
    A big commotion from the northern borders!
Judah’s towns about to be smashed,
    left to all the stray dogs and cats!

23-25 I know, God, that mere mortals
    can’t run their own lives,
That men and women
    don’t have what it takes to take charge of life.
So correct us, God, as you see best.
    Don’t lose your temper. That would be the end of us.
Vent your anger on the godless nations,
    who refuse to acknowledge you,
And on the people
    who won’t pray to you—
The very ones who’ve made hash out of Jacob,
    yes, made hash
And devoured him whole,
    people and pastures alike.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Friday, August 21, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 86:1–13

A David Psalm

Bend an ear, God; answer me.
    I’m one miserable wretch!
Keep me safe—haven’t I lived a good life?
    Help your servant—I’m depending on you!
You’re my God; have mercy on me.
    I count on you from morning to night.
Give your servant a happy life;
    I put myself in your hands!
You’re well-known as good and forgiving,
    bighearted to all who ask for help.
Pay attention, God, to my prayer;
    bend down and listen to my cry for help.
Every time I’m in trouble I call on you,
    confident that you’ll answer.

8-10 There’s no one quite like you among the gods, O Lord,
    and nothing to compare with your works.
All the nations you made are on their way,
    ready to give honor to you, O Lord,
Ready to put your beauty on display,
    parading your greatness,
And the great things you do—
    God, you’re the one, there’s no one but you!

11-17 Train me, God, to walk straight;
    then I’ll follow your true path.
Put me together, one heart and mind;
    then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear.
From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord;
    I’ve never kept secret what you’re up to.
You’ve always been great toward me—what love!
    You snatched me from the brink of disaster!
God, these bullies have reared their heads!
    A gang of thugs is after me—
    and they don’t care a thing about you.
But you, O God, are both tender and kind,
    not easily angered, immense in love,
    and you never, never quit.
So look me in the eye and show kindness,
    give your servant the strength to go on,
    save your dear, dear child!
Make a show of how much you love me
    so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed,
As you, God, gently and powerfully
    put me back on my feet.

Insight
King David is credited with composing seventy-three to seventy-four of the psalms, and Psalm 86 is one of them. Unlike some of David’s songs (see, for example, the superscription of Psalm 51), Psalm 86 contains no comments about the circumstances that prompted its writing, and it appears to contain numerous phrases that appear in other Davidic psalms. However, the key feature of Psalm 86, as observed in The New Bible Commentary, may be that the name Lord appears seven times (vv. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15) using the Hebrew term Adonai, which speaks of God’s sovereignty. As David offers worship and adoration to God, he also presents his needs and concerns to Him—knowing that he’s appealing to the God who not only deserves all his worship and praise, but that He’s the One who can be trusted with all possible outcomes.

Bright Spots in Bleak Places
You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. Psalm 86:5

When my husband and I were exploring a small, rugged corner of the state of Wyoming, I spied a sunflower in a rocky, dry place where sagebrush, nettles, prickly cactus, and other scraggly plants grew. It wasn’t as tall as the domestic sunflower, but it was just as bright—and I felt cheered.

This unexpected bright spot in rough terrain reminded me of how life, even for the believer in Jesus, can seem barren and cheerless. Troubles can seem insurmountable, and like the cries of the psalmist David, our prayers sometimes seem to go unheeded: “Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy” (Psalm 86:1). Like him, we too long for joy (v. 4).

But David goes on to declare that we serve a faithful (v. 11), “compassionate and gracious God” (v. 15), who abounds in love for all who call on Him (v. 5). He does answer (v. 7).

Sometimes in bleak places, God sends a sunflower—an encouraging word or note from a friend; a comforting verse or Bible passage; a beautiful sunrise—that helps us to move forward with a lighter step, with hope. Even as we await the day we experience God’s deliverance out of our difficulty, may we join the psalmist in proclaiming, “You are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God”! (v. 10). By:  Alyson Kieda

Reflect & Pray
Out of what difficult place has God delivered you? During that time, did you experience any “sunflowers” that helped you persevere?

Loving God, thank You for being compassionate and gracious. Help me to remember how You’ve been faithful and answered my prayers in the past—and will again in the future.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 21, 2020
The Ministry of the Unnoticed

Blessed are the poor in spirit… —Matthew 5:3

The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. “Blessed are the poor in spirit….” This literally means, “Blessed are the paupers.” Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person’s strength of will or the beauty of his character— things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, “Make a decision for Jesus Christ,” places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, “Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom.” I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness— I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.

The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.

Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 107-109; 1 Corinthians 4

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 21, 2020
The List Your Name Is On - #8770

I'm kind of a strange tourist. When I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I asked to be taken to a graveyard that overlooks the ocean. There, I walked through rows of these grave markers that have no name but the same date - April 15, 1912. That's the night the Titanic sank, and those are some of its unidentified victims. Not too long ago, the Titanic showed up again on the evening news. Lillian Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, died at age 99. It's believed that there might have been just two survivors left at that point, both in England. Those names and the name of every passenger are listed on a big wall at the end of an exhibit I attended called the Titanic Artifacts Exhibit. I got to experience that exhibit as it toured America's great museums years ago. The list indicated whether the person was a first, second, or third class passenger, or a crewman. But no matter what their class, every one of those 2,200 people appeared on one of two lists.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The List Your Name Is On."

Every person on the Titanic ended up listed one of two ways: saved or lost. Nothing else mattered. Every person on earth, every person listening, is on one of two lists in God's records. As the last survivors of Titanic have slipped into eternity, they will be "saved" or "lost" forever and so will every one of us.

Our word for today from the Word of God makes the two lists very clear, along with what it is that makes a person either "saved" or "lost." In 1 John 5:11-12, the Bible says: "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life (that's saved); he who does not have the Son of God does not have life (that's lost)." Our eternal destination is all contingent on one thing - whether or not we have the Son of God. Not whether or not we have religion or Christianity, but whether we have Jesus.

So how do you get Jesus? God's pretty clear about that. He says, for example, in John 3:36, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life (saved), but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him (lost)." God's wrath is because of what we've done with the life He gave us. In essence, we've made ourselves God by doing what we wanted to do with our life. Oh yeah, we may have mixed in some religion to try to offset our taking over of our life, but religion in no way can pay the penalty for the hijacking of our life from the Creator of the universe. Sin is a capital crime, punishable by spiritual death; separation from God now and forever.

The Bible says that believing in God's Son, Jesus, can literally change which list we're on. When the Bible says "believe," the word is about total trust, complete reliance. And only total trust in Jesus can rescue us from our spiritual death penalty, because only Jesus could and only Jesus did die in our place. He said, "Father, I will take their hell so they can go to our heaven." He did that for you. That's how much He loves you.

So what's happening right now is so much bigger than you just listening to some guy on the radio. This is a holy opportunity to remove your name forever from the list that says "lost" and put it on the list that says "saved." Your name will be entered in what the Bible calls God's Book of Life the moment you reach for Jesus in total trust as your only hope of going to heaven. That could be today. With eternity in the balance, I can't think of a good reason to risk one more day on the list that says "lost."

We'd consider it such a privilege to do for you what someone did for us one day. They explained to us how to begin this relationship with Jesus. Well, that's what our website does. So I want to ask you to go there. It's ANewStory.com.

I'll leave you with just how the Bible describes what could happen to you this very day. It says that the man or woman who opens their life to Jesus "...has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life!" (John 5:24). This could be that day for you!