Max Lucado Daily: Immersed in Grace
Immersed in Grace
Posted: 14 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad.” Psalm 126:3 NKJV
You have not been sprinkled with forgiveness. You have not been spattered with grace. You have not been dusted with kindness. You have been immersed in it. You are submerged in mercy. You are a minnow in the ocean of God’s mercy. Let it change you!
Philemon 1
1-3I, Paul, am a prisoner for the sake of Christ, here with my brother Timothy. I write this letter to you, Philemon, my good friend and companion in this work—also to our sister Apphia, to Archippus, a real trooper, and to the church that meets in your house. God's best to you! Christ's blessings on you!
4-7Every time your name comes up in my prayers, I say, "Oh, thank you, God!" I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other believers. And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it. Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers.
To Call the Slave Your Friend
8-9In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ's ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn't hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I'd rather make it a personal request.
10-14While here in jail, I've fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he's useful to both of us. I'm sending him back to you, but it feels like I'm cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I'm in jail for the Message. But I didn't want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn't willingly agreed to.
15-16Maybe it's all for the best that you lost him for a while. You're getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That's what he was to me—he'll be even more than that to you.
17-20So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me. If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account. This is my personal signature—Paul—and I stand behind it. (I don't need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?) Do me this big favor, friend. You'll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.
21-22I know you well enough to know you will. You'll probably go far beyond what I've written. And by the way, get a room ready for me. Because of your prayers, I fully expect to be your guest again.
23-25Epaphras, my cellmate in the cause of Christ, says hello. Also my coworkers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. All the best to you from the Master, Jesus Christ!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 71
1 In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame.
2 Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness; turn your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of evil and cruel men.
5 For you have been my hope, O Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.
6 From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you.
7 I have become like a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long.
9 Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
10 For my enemies speak against me; those who wait to kill me conspire together.
11 They say, "God has forsaken him; pursue him and seize him, for no one will rescue him."
12 Be not far from me, O God; come quickly, O my God, to help me.
13 May my accusers perish in shame; may those who want to harm me be covered with scorn and disgrace.
14 But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.
15 My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure.
16 I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone.
17 Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
18 Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.
19 Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, you who have done great things. Who, O God, is like you?
20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.
21 You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.
22 I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you-- I, whom you have redeemed.
24 My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion.
A Man My Age
July 15, 2010 — by Bill Crowder
When I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation. —Psalm 71:18
On a recent flight, I got ready to do some work. Spread out on my tray were my laptop computer, backup hard drive, iPod, and other gadgets that are part of being a 21st-century “road warrior.” As I worked, a young man seated beside me asked if he could make a comment. He told me how inspirational it was for him, a young man, to see someone my age so enthusiastically embracing modern technology. In spite of his intention to compliment me, I suddenly felt about 120 years old. What did he mean by “someone my age”? I wondered. After all, I was “only” 57.
Then I remembered Psalm 71, the psalm for folks “my age” and beyond. It reminds us of the value of a life well lived and of the worth of lessons learned: Lessons are not just for our benefit but also for us to pass along to the next generations. The psalmist wrote, “When I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come” (v.18).
So, maybe being “someone my age” isn’t such a bad gig. It is the privilege of “veteran” Christ-followers to declare the strength and power of God to the younger generations. That’s how we can truly be inspirational to them.
The older saints who trust God’s Word
Have trod where younger ones now walk;
They’ve fought the battles they will fight—
Their wisdom teaches truth and right. —Branon
The best gift for the younger generation is a good example from the older generation.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 15th , 2010
My Life’s Spiritual Honor and Duty
I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians . . . —Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent his life to express it. The greatest inspiration in Paul’s life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that same sense of indebtedness to Christ regarding every unsaved soul? As a saint, my life’s spiritual honor and duty is to fulfill my debt to Christ in relation to these lost souls. Every tiny bit of my life that has value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to enable Him to bring His redemption into evident reality in the lives of others? I will only be able to do this as the Spirit of God works into me this sense of indebtedness.
I am not a superior person among other people— I am a bondservant of the Lord Jesus. Paul said, “. . . you are not your own . . . you were bought at a price . . .” ( 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ). Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and he said, in effect, “I am a debtor to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus; I am free only that I may be an absolute bondservant of His.” That is the characteristic of a Christian’s life once this level of spiritual honor and duty becomes real. Quit praying about yourself and spend your life for the sake of others as the bondservant of Jesus. That is the true meaning of being broken bread and poured-out wine in real life.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
When the Goal is Beyond Your Reach - #6134
Thursday, July 15, 2010
It's hard to believe there was a time when you had to be carried by someone in order to get anywhere, right? You know, there was a time when it was a major, major breakthrough for you to finally figure out how to move yourself places. Not too long ago, I had a chance to see our six-month-old granddaughter in that milestone struggle to figure out how to crawl. We stopped the presses not long ago because she had learned to sit up by herself. Now, that's a good start. I had been sitting on the living room carpet with her (I recently learned to sit up by myself, as well). I lay down a few feet from her, I held a favorite toy on the rug in front of me, and I started drumming my fingers rhythmically on the carpet. She was definitely intrigued. And you could tell she really wanted to get to my fingers and to that toy. She finally figured out there was no easy way to get what she wanted. She managed to fall forward from her sitting position, get up on all fours, and then rock back and forth in neutral. She reached my direction with one hand, risking her delicate balance. She didn't quite make it, but I knew she would soon. Because I knew that she would eventually do whatever she had to do to get where she wanted to be.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When the Goal is Beyond Your Reach."
Sometimes you have to do things you've never done to reach what you've never had before, if you're a baby...or if you're a child of God. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always have what you've always had. And that's all. And much of what you need in your life, much of what you're restless for, and much of what God wants to give you is beyond your reach. As long as you stay in your comfort zone, it always will be.
Peter learned a lot about the life-stretching ways of Jesus one day on the lake called the Sea of Galilee. It's in Luke 5, beginning with verse 5, and it's our word for today from the Word of God. Peter, the veteran fisherman, had nothing to show for a whole night of fishing. Then, in the middle of the day (when fish are hard to find), Jesus tells him to put out into the deep water and let down the nets that Peter has just finished cleaning. Well, the Bible says, "Simon answered, 'Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.'" They caught so many fish it almost sank their boats!
Jesus was beckoning Peter to do something he had never done so he could experience something he had never experienced, just like I was doing with my little granddaughter. And that day Peter decided to take an even riskier step. He left the only life he knew, as a fisherman, and chose to follow Jesus wherever He took him, which was to give to his life a spiritual significance he could have never imagined. But he had to move beyond what was safe, and so do you.
God's been trying to get you to make that move. Maybe that's why that door closed, that chapter ended, why those plans changed, or why you've "worked hard all night and caught nothing." He's not trying to frustrate you. He's trying to move you to something bigger...something better. Jesus wants to take you to another level. But you'll never get there if you just keep sitting where it's safe, settling only for what you can be sure of. Remember what faith is: "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
You'll never grow, you'll never see what you could be if you stay there where you've always been. Your Father is beckoning to you, inviting you to make a move in the direction of something greater. Don't just sit there!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Romans , Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: No Room for Almost
No Room for Almost
Posted: 13 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“We don’t live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.” Romans 8:4
ALMOST. How many times do these six letters find their way into despairing epitaphs?
“She almost chose not to leave him.” “He almost became a Christian.”
Jesus . . . demands absolute obedience. He never has room for “almost” in his vocabulary. You are either with him or against him . . . With the Master, “almost” is just as good as “never.”
Romans 12
Place Your Life Before God
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.
6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.
17-19Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."
20-21Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Luke 15:11-24
11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons.
12 The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13 "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!
18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'
20 So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate.
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Deal, Or No Deal
July 14, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. —Luke 15:19
If you’re like me, you love a good deal. Not just bargain shopping, but when you manage to cut a great deal for yourself without giving anything up in return. So if you can identify with these kinds of deals, you’ll understand the prodigal son’s scheme when he decided to return home.
There were three kinds of servants in those days: day workers who were paid on a day-to-day basis; hired servants who worked long hours on the estate but lived in town with their independence intact; or bond servants who lived on the estate and gave all of themselves to serving the family.
When the prodigal son hit rock bottom, it’s interesting that his planned apology involved asking if he could be like a hired servant. Why not a grateful bond servant? Some commentators suggest that perhaps he was trying to negotiate a deal—a way to get a paycheck and keep his independence as well.
Often we approach God like, “I’ll serve You but You can’t take away my freedom.” It may seem like a good deal at the time, but God’s deal is so much better. Just like the boy’s father, His arms are ready and willing to receive repentant sinners as part of His family. There could be no better deal and no better way to serve Him!
Lord, take my life and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender, Lord—in me abide. —Orr
True freedom is found in surrender to Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 14th , 2010
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also —Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus— it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, “Do your duty,” but is, in effect, “Do what is not your duty.” It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, “Oh well, I just can’t do any more, and I’ve been so misrepresented and misunderstood.” Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling “up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . .” ( Colossians 1:24 ). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord’s honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is— Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Standing Against the Tide - #6133
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
For many years, our family has been going to Ocean City, New Jersey, for vacations and conferences. It's a three-mile boardwalk, it's great Atlantic beaches, and it's family atmosphere. Well, those are all things that we can all get excited about, but something happened over those years at the beach. The beach shrank. Well, not all at once; it was a little at a time. It just got eroded. Eventually, the city fathers had a major challenge on their hands. They had to rebuild their bread-and-butter; those beaches that were slowly disappearing!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Standing Against the Tide."
Some great places have been really damaged by the slow process of erosion. So have some great people. That's why you've got to make the choices that will stop the erosion in your life.
And we've all got a powerful example for that in our word for today from the Word of God in the Book of Daniel, chapter 1, beginning with verse 5. Daniel is one of a handful of promising Jewish young men who have been taken to Babylon after King Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of their land. The king includes them with some of his own Babylonian "first round draft picks" in this leadership development program that will ultimately propel them to greatness in the kingdom.
Everything was fine until the king, "...assigned a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table." This was a special "training table diet" designed to make them into the best physical specimens possible. But that kind of food was totally out of bounds for Jews back then, as defined by the laws of their God. Tough choice here. You're on your way to greatness, and right here at the beginning you're being asked to compromise a little. At stake could be your whole future - maybe even your life if you defied the most powerful man in the world.
But the Bible says, "Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel." This official was afraid he might be executed if Daniel and his Jewish comrades ended up looking worse than the others. So Daniel persuaded him to allow a ten-day test of an alternate diet of vegetables and water. Long story short, Daniel and company, the Bible says, "looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food" and "the king found none equal to Daniel" and his friends.
God may be asking you to risk everything right now on what looks like a very expensive faithfulness. It could really cost you to do what's right, to hold to your convictions, to refuse to compromise your integrity or your purity. You're risking everything on the faithfulness of your God. It's tempting to give in to get ahead, to get that need met, or to get out of that jam. But with your compromise goes a huge piece of you and the blessing of Almighty God. Resist that eroding tide.
And remember that God's favor is for God's faithful. You may, like Daniel, find yourself in different environments, pressured by different expectations, but you've got to be sure that it's always the same you! You have to "resolve not to defile yourself" to build an uncompromising wall against even the first step that would take you outside the ways of your God.
In the words of Psalm 4:5, "Offer right sacrifices, and trust in the Lord." Do what's right - even if it's a sacrifice - and trust the Lord for what happens after that. His greatest rewards are reserved for those who will not betray Him, even for another king. Erosion will take what you cannot afford to lose. Stand against that temptation, stand against the tide, and let God give you what you could never have any other way.
No Room for Almost
Posted: 13 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“We don’t live following our sinful selves, but we live following the Spirit.” Romans 8:4
ALMOST. How many times do these six letters find their way into despairing epitaphs?
“She almost chose not to leave him.” “He almost became a Christian.”
Jesus . . . demands absolute obedience. He never has room for “almost” in his vocabulary. You are either with him or against him . . . With the Master, “almost” is just as good as “never.”
Romans 12
Place Your Life Before God
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.
6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.
17-19Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."
20-21Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Luke 15:11-24
11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons.
12 The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13 "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!
18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'
20 So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate.
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
Deal, Or No Deal
July 14, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. —Luke 15:19
If you’re like me, you love a good deal. Not just bargain shopping, but when you manage to cut a great deal for yourself without giving anything up in return. So if you can identify with these kinds of deals, you’ll understand the prodigal son’s scheme when he decided to return home.
There were three kinds of servants in those days: day workers who were paid on a day-to-day basis; hired servants who worked long hours on the estate but lived in town with their independence intact; or bond servants who lived on the estate and gave all of themselves to serving the family.
When the prodigal son hit rock bottom, it’s interesting that his planned apology involved asking if he could be like a hired servant. Why not a grateful bond servant? Some commentators suggest that perhaps he was trying to negotiate a deal—a way to get a paycheck and keep his independence as well.
Often we approach God like, “I’ll serve You but You can’t take away my freedom.” It may seem like a good deal at the time, but God’s deal is so much better. Just like the boy’s father, His arms are ready and willing to receive repentant sinners as part of His family. There could be no better deal and no better way to serve Him!
Lord, take my life and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender, Lord—in me abide. —Orr
True freedom is found in surrender to Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 14th , 2010
Suffering Afflictions and Going the Second Mile
I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also —Matthew 5:39
This verse reveals the humiliation of being a Christian. In the natural realm, if a person does not hit back, it is because he is a coward. But in the spiritual realm, it is the very evidence of the Son of God in him if he does not hit back. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but you must make it an opportunity to exhibit the Son of God in your life. And you cannot imitate the nature of Jesus— it is either in you or it is not. A personal insult becomes an opportunity for a saint to reveal the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not, “Do your duty,” but is, in effect, “Do what is not your duty.” It is not your duty to go the second mile, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say, “Oh well, I just can’t do any more, and I’ve been so misrepresented and misunderstood.” Every time I insist on having my own rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself. That is the real meaning of filling “up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . .” ( Colossians 1:24 ). A disciple realizes that it is his Lord’s honor that is at stake in his life, not his own honor.
Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself. We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is— Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Standing Against the Tide - #6133
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
For many years, our family has been going to Ocean City, New Jersey, for vacations and conferences. It's a three-mile boardwalk, it's great Atlantic beaches, and it's family atmosphere. Well, those are all things that we can all get excited about, but something happened over those years at the beach. The beach shrank. Well, not all at once; it was a little at a time. It just got eroded. Eventually, the city fathers had a major challenge on their hands. They had to rebuild their bread-and-butter; those beaches that were slowly disappearing!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Standing Against the Tide."
Some great places have been really damaged by the slow process of erosion. So have some great people. That's why you've got to make the choices that will stop the erosion in your life.
And we've all got a powerful example for that in our word for today from the Word of God in the Book of Daniel, chapter 1, beginning with verse 5. Daniel is one of a handful of promising Jewish young men who have been taken to Babylon after King Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of their land. The king includes them with some of his own Babylonian "first round draft picks" in this leadership development program that will ultimately propel them to greatness in the kingdom.
Everything was fine until the king, "...assigned a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table." This was a special "training table diet" designed to make them into the best physical specimens possible. But that kind of food was totally out of bounds for Jews back then, as defined by the laws of their God. Tough choice here. You're on your way to greatness, and right here at the beginning you're being asked to compromise a little. At stake could be your whole future - maybe even your life if you defied the most powerful man in the world.
But the Bible says, "Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel." This official was afraid he might be executed if Daniel and his Jewish comrades ended up looking worse than the others. So Daniel persuaded him to allow a ten-day test of an alternate diet of vegetables and water. Long story short, Daniel and company, the Bible says, "looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food" and "the king found none equal to Daniel" and his friends.
God may be asking you to risk everything right now on what looks like a very expensive faithfulness. It could really cost you to do what's right, to hold to your convictions, to refuse to compromise your integrity or your purity. You're risking everything on the faithfulness of your God. It's tempting to give in to get ahead, to get that need met, or to get out of that jam. But with your compromise goes a huge piece of you and the blessing of Almighty God. Resist that eroding tide.
And remember that God's favor is for God's faithful. You may, like Daniel, find yourself in different environments, pressured by different expectations, but you've got to be sure that it's always the same you! You have to "resolve not to defile yourself" to build an uncompromising wall against even the first step that would take you outside the ways of your God.
In the words of Psalm 4:5, "Offer right sacrifices, and trust in the Lord." Do what's right - even if it's a sacrifice - and trust the Lord for what happens after that. His greatest rewards are reserved for those who will not betray Him, even for another king. Erosion will take what you cannot afford to lose. Stand against that temptation, stand against the tide, and let God give you what you could never have any other way.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Romans 8, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: We Wear Jesus
We Wear Jesus
“All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:27, NIV
We wear Jesus. And those who don’t believe in Jesus note that we do. They make decisions about Christ by watching us. When we are kind, they assume Christ is kind. When we are gracious, they assume Christ is gracious. But if we are brash, what will people think about our King? When we are dishonest, what assumptions will an observer make about our Master? . . . Courteous conduct honors Christ.
Romans 8
The Solution Is Life on God's Terms
1-2With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Deuteronomy 15:7-11
7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.
8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.
9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: "The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near," so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.
11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
The Poor Among Us
July 13, 2010 — by Marvin Williams
If there is among you a poor man of your brethren . . . you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand. —Deuteronomy 15:7
Francis Chan, in his book Crazy Love, tells of a family with an interesting Christmas tradition. On Christmas morning, the Robynson family doesn’t focus on opening presents under the Christmas tree. Instead, they make pancakes and coffee, and serve the breakfast to the homeless. This is a small but creative way to show God’s love and generosity to the poor.
God expected this kind of generosity from His people. In Deuteronomy 15, Moses emphasized the reality of poverty and how the more affluent must deal with it. They were warned of four dangers:
A hard heart, ignoring the needs of the poor (v.7).
A closed hand, withholding what the poor lacked (v.7).
An evil thought, hesitating or refusing to loan money to the poor because the year of canceling debts was nearing (v.9).
A grudging spirit, a reluctance to satisfy the needs of the poor among them (v.10). Not only were they warned about selfishness, but more important, they were encouraged to be spontaneously generous (vv.8,10,11).
Among God’s people, there must always be a spirit of generosity toward the poor. Let’s open our hearts and our hands.
One grace each child of God can show
Is giving from a willing heart;
Yet, if we wait till riches grow,
It well may be we’ll never start. —D. De Haan
Generosity stems from the heart that has experienced God’s grace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 13th , 2010
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . —Isaiah 6:1
Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, “I saw the Lord,” there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure— His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, “In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.”
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Surprising End of a Long Search - #6132
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
When you go to a church pot luck dinner, you never know what kind of luck you're going to have in your pot. You know? Friends of ours were at one of those dinners with their granddaughter recently. Someone there had baked what they called a Jesus cake. That, of course, raises the obvious question, "What is a Jesus cake?" They were told that someone had actually baked a very small plastic baby toy into the cake, and they called it Baby Jesus. If anyone found the baby in their piece of cake, they would win a prize. Well, our friends' granddaughter became obsessed with finding the baby - to the point of downing five pieces of cake - the ultimate "sugar high." She was desperately trying to find baby Jesus, and she did. And when she found the baby, the little girl said, "Finding Baby Jesus changes everything."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Surprising End of a Long Search."
When my friends told me about their granddaughter's discovery, my first thought was, "Cute story." Then I realized that what happened to that little girl was also a picture of what's happened in the lives of so many people I've met - a long search for the prize. Then the end of the search that changes everything - finding Jesus.
Our lives are so much more than just the sum of all our daily activities. Those aren't enough to satisfy the thirst in our soul. We're seekers. Beginning in our teenage years, we're searching for what goes in the hole that's deep in our heart. We want significance. One of the best-selling books in recent years was entitled "The Purpose-Driven Life." That's a good description of what we're looking for; some great purpose that will drive our life and give it significance...give it meaning. We're looking for the answer to the question, "What's the point of all this?"
We're also on a search for love. We invest pretty heavily in one relationship after another, hoping that this one will pay off in giving us the one love that we'll never lose. But that's the problem with every human love - they either desert you, disappoint you, divorce you, or die on you. So our search for that anchor love goes on. We're really looking for security, too; something we know will be there to hang onto when everything else in our life is up for grabs.
So we just keep grabbing another piece of the cake, hoping that what we're looking for is in that slice, and it isn't. Listen to what Jesus says about the end of our lifetime search in John 6:35. It's our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty." Hunger satisfied. Thirst quenched. Search over when you come to Jesus.
Why? Because the God who puts us here is what we've been looking for. We were made for a love relationship with Him. But, according to the Bible, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We were created for God, but we've lived for ourselves. And we've lost Him, and thus the hole in our heart. That restlessness - that lack of peace and fulfillment - that's an echo of another world; the constant reminder that God is missing. Until, in the words of that little girl, "Jesus changes everything."
That's because His death on the cross was the payment that can cancel the sin that stands between us and our God - between you and your God. His resurrection from the dead is the proof that He can deliver the eternal life He promises. And this very day, He is, in His words, knocking on the door of your heart. In reality, you don't find Jesus. He finds you and comes to you, offering you the opportunity to grab Him like a drowning person would grab their rescuer. At the moment you do that, everything between you and God is erased forever.
If you'd like to make today the day that your long search finally ends, I want to encourage you to visit our website. I've got a brief explanation there of exactly how to get started with Jesus Christ. I would just ask you to check it out. It's YoursForLife.net. Or if you'd like me to send you that information in written form in my booklet Yours For Life, just call toll free and ask for it at 877-741-1200.
You're very close to the end of your search. You're very close to Jesus. When you find Him, you have found everything your soul has ever longed for.
We Wear Jesus
“All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:27, NIV
We wear Jesus. And those who don’t believe in Jesus note that we do. They make decisions about Christ by watching us. When we are kind, they assume Christ is kind. When we are gracious, they assume Christ is gracious. But if we are brash, what will people think about our King? When we are dishonest, what assumptions will an observer make about our Master? . . . Courteous conduct honors Christ.
Romans 8
The Solution Is Life on God's Terms
1-2With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Deuteronomy 15:7-11
7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.
8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.
9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: "The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near," so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.
11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
The Poor Among Us
July 13, 2010 — by Marvin Williams
If there is among you a poor man of your brethren . . . you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand. —Deuteronomy 15:7
Francis Chan, in his book Crazy Love, tells of a family with an interesting Christmas tradition. On Christmas morning, the Robynson family doesn’t focus on opening presents under the Christmas tree. Instead, they make pancakes and coffee, and serve the breakfast to the homeless. This is a small but creative way to show God’s love and generosity to the poor.
God expected this kind of generosity from His people. In Deuteronomy 15, Moses emphasized the reality of poverty and how the more affluent must deal with it. They were warned of four dangers:
A hard heart, ignoring the needs of the poor (v.7).
A closed hand, withholding what the poor lacked (v.7).
An evil thought, hesitating or refusing to loan money to the poor because the year of canceling debts was nearing (v.9).
A grudging spirit, a reluctance to satisfy the needs of the poor among them (v.10). Not only were they warned about selfishness, but more important, they were encouraged to be spontaneously generous (vv.8,10,11).
Among God’s people, there must always be a spirit of generosity toward the poor. Let’s open our hearts and our hands.
One grace each child of God can show
Is giving from a willing heart;
Yet, if we wait till riches grow,
It well may be we’ll never start. —D. De Haan
Generosity stems from the heart that has experienced God’s grace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 13th , 2010
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord . . . —Isaiah 6:1
Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, “I saw the Lord,” there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure— His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, “In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.”
Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Surprising End of a Long Search - #6132
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
When you go to a church pot luck dinner, you never know what kind of luck you're going to have in your pot. You know? Friends of ours were at one of those dinners with their granddaughter recently. Someone there had baked what they called a Jesus cake. That, of course, raises the obvious question, "What is a Jesus cake?" They were told that someone had actually baked a very small plastic baby toy into the cake, and they called it Baby Jesus. If anyone found the baby in their piece of cake, they would win a prize. Well, our friends' granddaughter became obsessed with finding the baby - to the point of downing five pieces of cake - the ultimate "sugar high." She was desperately trying to find baby Jesus, and she did. And when she found the baby, the little girl said, "Finding Baby Jesus changes everything."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Surprising End of a Long Search."
When my friends told me about their granddaughter's discovery, my first thought was, "Cute story." Then I realized that what happened to that little girl was also a picture of what's happened in the lives of so many people I've met - a long search for the prize. Then the end of the search that changes everything - finding Jesus.
Our lives are so much more than just the sum of all our daily activities. Those aren't enough to satisfy the thirst in our soul. We're seekers. Beginning in our teenage years, we're searching for what goes in the hole that's deep in our heart. We want significance. One of the best-selling books in recent years was entitled "The Purpose-Driven Life." That's a good description of what we're looking for; some great purpose that will drive our life and give it significance...give it meaning. We're looking for the answer to the question, "What's the point of all this?"
We're also on a search for love. We invest pretty heavily in one relationship after another, hoping that this one will pay off in giving us the one love that we'll never lose. But that's the problem with every human love - they either desert you, disappoint you, divorce you, or die on you. So our search for that anchor love goes on. We're really looking for security, too; something we know will be there to hang onto when everything else in our life is up for grabs.
So we just keep grabbing another piece of the cake, hoping that what we're looking for is in that slice, and it isn't. Listen to what Jesus says about the end of our lifetime search in John 6:35. It's our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty." Hunger satisfied. Thirst quenched. Search over when you come to Jesus.
Why? Because the God who puts us here is what we've been looking for. We were made for a love relationship with Him. But, according to the Bible, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). We were created for God, but we've lived for ourselves. And we've lost Him, and thus the hole in our heart. That restlessness - that lack of peace and fulfillment - that's an echo of another world; the constant reminder that God is missing. Until, in the words of that little girl, "Jesus changes everything."
That's because His death on the cross was the payment that can cancel the sin that stands between us and our God - between you and your God. His resurrection from the dead is the proof that He can deliver the eternal life He promises. And this very day, He is, in His words, knocking on the door of your heart. In reality, you don't find Jesus. He finds you and comes to you, offering you the opportunity to grab Him like a drowning person would grab their rescuer. At the moment you do that, everything between you and God is erased forever.
If you'd like to make today the day that your long search finally ends, I want to encourage you to visit our website. I've got a brief explanation there of exactly how to get started with Jesus Christ. I would just ask you to check it out. It's YoursForLife.net. Or if you'd like me to send you that information in written form in my booklet Yours For Life, just call toll free and ask for it at 877-741-1200.
You're very close to the end of your search. You're very close to Jesus. When you find Him, you have found everything your soul has ever longed for.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Romans 7, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: The Rule of the Kingdom
The Rule of the Kingdom
Posted: 11 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“We must not become tired of doing good.” Galatians 6:9
When we are mistreated, our animalistic response is to go on the hunt. Instinctively, we double up our fists. Getting even is only natural. Which incidentally, is precisely the problem. Revenge is natural, not spiritual. Getting even is the rule of the jungle. Giving grace is the rule of the kingdom . . .
To forgive someone is to admit our limitations. We’ve been given only one piece of life’s jigsaw puzzle. Only God has the cover of the box.
Romans 7
Torn Between One Way and Another
1-3 You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval.
4-6So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.
7But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
8-12Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.
13I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.
14-16I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.
17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
25The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Acts 17:22-31
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill.
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
A Spiritual Journey
July 12, 2010 — by Dennis Fisher
You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. —1 Thessalonians 1:9
The miracles that God worked through Moses challenged the many gods of Pharaoh. Yet, in another time, there was a Pharaoh who promoted the belief in one deity. Pharaoh Akhenaten pointed to the rising and setting sun as the great deity who gave life to the earth. His religious symbol for Aton, the sun god, was represented by a single disc of light with emanating rays. Though this Pharaoh’s idea came closer to the one God of the Bible, it was still idolatry.
When Paul addressed the people in Athens, he was grieved by the idolatry in that city. Yet he used the people’s imperfect understanding of God to point them to the God of Scripture. Of their efforts in trying to find God, Paul said: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24).
In our increasingly pluralistic world, the people around us may worship a multiplicity of deities. Yet their spiritual journey need not end there. We never know when someone might be moving toward the kingdom of God. Following the example of Paul, we should respect a person’s religious background, watch for spiritual receptivity, and then point him or her to the one true God of Scripture.
A Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to lead the lost away from all that is false. And to lead them to You—the one and only God— who alone offers true life. Amen.
God alone is worthy of our worship.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 12th , 2010
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . —Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose— that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ— “. . . that I may know Him. . .” ( Philippians 3:10 ). To fulfill God’s perfect design for me requires my total surrender— complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Sunsets in the Puddles - #6131
Monday, July 12, 2010
Some of the worst stories of human brutality in history came out of Hitler's concentration camps in World War II. But out of those camps also came some incredible examples of human triumph and heroism. Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust in the infamous Auschwitz death camp, told some of those stories in his book. He testified that some of those in Auschwitz were surviving better after a year than some did after only a few days. He said that those who didn't sink were those who drew their outlook from what he described as a second dimension experience.
All the prisoners in the camp shared the same first dimension experience - the terrible horrors they were subjected to every day. But this second dimension that some drew upon had, according to Victor Frankl, four elements - seeing meaning, seeing beauty, maintaining humor, and thinking future. One example that stands out in my mind was the man who ran into the barracks one day, gathered all his fellow prisoners together to go outside and see something special. He was actually celebrating the beauty of a blazing sunset reflected in the puddles from last night's rain.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Sunsets in the Puddles."
Few, if any of us, have endured something so inhuman, so unjust, or so brutal as those who suffered through the Holocaust in Hitler's death camps. But they can teach us something: that while you often cannot choose your circumstances, you can choose your attitude in the midst of those circumstances. Your environment, however harsh and hurting, does not have to be decisive in the kind of person you are and the kind of response you choose.
When Paul wrote our word for today from the Word of God, his circumstances were miserable. He was in prison on trumped up charges, his surroundings were horrendous, his dreams were on hold, and people outside were actually taking advantage of his circumstances to diminish him and advance themselves. He's got so many reasons to be complaining, questioning, spewing, attacking, or giving up.
Doesn't happen, because he's drawing on his in-vironment, not his environment - on Christ's resources inside him where not even Caesar can interfere. In Philippians 4, beginning with verse 4, Paul says from his prison cell, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Then he reveals his secret of winning amid life's worst, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely (like a sunset in a puddle!), whatever is admirable, think about such things." Then, after testifying that he has "learned to be content whatever the circumstances," he gives the ultimate secret of being on top, no matter what season you're in, "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
So how you handle what you don't like is the difference between peace and frustration, between contentment and anger, and between joy and discouragement. It's all about what you dwell on, not what you're going through. If you dwell on what's beautiful, if you dwell on what God is doing, or how you can lift up other people, you could be unsinkable no matter how many icebergs there are. For as one man said, "To those who look for providences, there will always be a providence to see." Choose joy!
The Rule of the Kingdom
Posted: 11 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“We must not become tired of doing good.” Galatians 6:9
When we are mistreated, our animalistic response is to go on the hunt. Instinctively, we double up our fists. Getting even is only natural. Which incidentally, is precisely the problem. Revenge is natural, not spiritual. Getting even is the rule of the jungle. Giving grace is the rule of the kingdom . . .
To forgive someone is to admit our limitations. We’ve been given only one piece of life’s jigsaw puzzle. Only God has the cover of the box.
Romans 7
Torn Between One Way and Another
1-3 You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law—how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval.
4-6So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.
7But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
8-12Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.
13I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.
14-16I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.
17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
25The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Acts 17:22-31
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill.
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
A Spiritual Journey
July 12, 2010 — by Dennis Fisher
You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. —1 Thessalonians 1:9
The miracles that God worked through Moses challenged the many gods of Pharaoh. Yet, in another time, there was a Pharaoh who promoted the belief in one deity. Pharaoh Akhenaten pointed to the rising and setting sun as the great deity who gave life to the earth. His religious symbol for Aton, the sun god, was represented by a single disc of light with emanating rays. Though this Pharaoh’s idea came closer to the one God of the Bible, it was still idolatry.
When Paul addressed the people in Athens, he was grieved by the idolatry in that city. Yet he used the people’s imperfect understanding of God to point them to the God of Scripture. Of their efforts in trying to find God, Paul said: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands” (Acts 17:24).
In our increasingly pluralistic world, the people around us may worship a multiplicity of deities. Yet their spiritual journey need not end there. We never know when someone might be moving toward the kingdom of God. Following the example of Paul, we should respect a person’s religious background, watch for spiritual receptivity, and then point him or her to the one true God of Scripture.
A Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to lead the lost away from all that is false. And to lead them to You—the one and only God— who alone offers true life. Amen.
God alone is worthy of our worship.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 12th , 2010
The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church
. . . till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . —Ephesians 4:13
Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose— that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.
Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ— “. . . that I may know Him. . .” ( Philippians 3:10 ). To fulfill God’s perfect design for me requires my total surrender— complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.
My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.
Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Sunsets in the Puddles - #6131
Monday, July 12, 2010
Some of the worst stories of human brutality in history came out of Hitler's concentration camps in World War II. But out of those camps also came some incredible examples of human triumph and heroism. Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust in the infamous Auschwitz death camp, told some of those stories in his book. He testified that some of those in Auschwitz were surviving better after a year than some did after only a few days. He said that those who didn't sink were those who drew their outlook from what he described as a second dimension experience.
All the prisoners in the camp shared the same first dimension experience - the terrible horrors they were subjected to every day. But this second dimension that some drew upon had, according to Victor Frankl, four elements - seeing meaning, seeing beauty, maintaining humor, and thinking future. One example that stands out in my mind was the man who ran into the barracks one day, gathered all his fellow prisoners together to go outside and see something special. He was actually celebrating the beauty of a blazing sunset reflected in the puddles from last night's rain.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Sunsets in the Puddles."
Few, if any of us, have endured something so inhuman, so unjust, or so brutal as those who suffered through the Holocaust in Hitler's death camps. But they can teach us something: that while you often cannot choose your circumstances, you can choose your attitude in the midst of those circumstances. Your environment, however harsh and hurting, does not have to be decisive in the kind of person you are and the kind of response you choose.
When Paul wrote our word for today from the Word of God, his circumstances were miserable. He was in prison on trumped up charges, his surroundings were horrendous, his dreams were on hold, and people outside were actually taking advantage of his circumstances to diminish him and advance themselves. He's got so many reasons to be complaining, questioning, spewing, attacking, or giving up.
Doesn't happen, because he's drawing on his in-vironment, not his environment - on Christ's resources inside him where not even Caesar can interfere. In Philippians 4, beginning with verse 4, Paul says from his prison cell, "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" Then he reveals his secret of winning amid life's worst, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely (like a sunset in a puddle!), whatever is admirable, think about such things." Then, after testifying that he has "learned to be content whatever the circumstances," he gives the ultimate secret of being on top, no matter what season you're in, "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
So how you handle what you don't like is the difference between peace and frustration, between contentment and anger, and between joy and discouragement. It's all about what you dwell on, not what you're going through. If you dwell on what's beautiful, if you dwell on what God is doing, or how you can lift up other people, you could be unsinkable no matter how many icebergs there are. For as one man said, "To those who look for providences, there will always be a providence to see." Choose joy!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Romans 6, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: He Gave His Blood
He Gave His Blood
Posted: 10 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Hebrews 10:4 NIV
Sacrifices could offer temporary solutions, but only God could offer the eternal one.
So he did.
Beneath the rubble of a fallen world, he pierced his hands. In the wreckage of a collapsed humanity, he ripped open his side . . . He gave his blood.
It was all he had.
Romans 6
When Death Becomes Life
1-3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
3-5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.
6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
12-14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.
What Is True Freedom?
15-18So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
20-21As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22-23But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: James 1:19-27
19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,
20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror
24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
The Doers Of The World
July 11, 2010 — by Cindy Hess Kasper
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only. —James 1:22
Just after we moved to a house in a new neighborhood, we invited my sister-in-law and her husband over for Sunday dinner. As we were greeting Sue and Ted at the door, an odd noise directed their eyes toward the kitchen. As I followed their gaze, I froze in horror. An errant hose of our old portable dishwasher was whipping about like the trunk of an angry elephant, spewing water everywhere!
Sue went into action mode. Dropping her purse, she was in the kitchen before me, shutting off the water and calling for towels and a mop. We spent the first 15 minutes of their visit on our knees mopping the floor.
Sue is a doer—and the world is a better place because of the doers of the world. These are the people who are always ready to pitch in, to be involved, and even to lead if necessary.
Many of the doers of the world are also doers of the Word. These are the followers of Jesus who have taken the challenge of James to heart: “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (1:22).
Are you doing all that you know God wants you to do? As you read God’s Word, put what you’ve learned into practice. First hear—then do. God’s blessing comes as a result of our obedience (v.25).
We need to hear the Word of God
To know what we should do,
But listening is not enough
Without our follow-through. —Sper
The value of the Bible does not consist merely in knowing it, but in obeying it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 11th , 2010
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . —Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing— even eating, drinking, or washing disciples’ feet— we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. “Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples’ feet . . .” ( John 13:3-5 ).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is “that I may know Him . . .” Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
He Gave His Blood
Posted: 10 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Hebrews 10:4 NIV
Sacrifices could offer temporary solutions, but only God could offer the eternal one.
So he did.
Beneath the rubble of a fallen world, he pierced his hands. In the wreckage of a collapsed humanity, he ripped open his side . . . He gave his blood.
It was all he had.
Romans 6
When Death Becomes Life
1-3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
3-5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.
6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
12-14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.
What Is True Freedom?
15-18So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
19I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
20-21As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
22-23But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: James 1:19-27
19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,
20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror
24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.
26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.
27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
The Doers Of The World
July 11, 2010 — by Cindy Hess Kasper
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only. —James 1:22
Just after we moved to a house in a new neighborhood, we invited my sister-in-law and her husband over for Sunday dinner. As we were greeting Sue and Ted at the door, an odd noise directed their eyes toward the kitchen. As I followed their gaze, I froze in horror. An errant hose of our old portable dishwasher was whipping about like the trunk of an angry elephant, spewing water everywhere!
Sue went into action mode. Dropping her purse, she was in the kitchen before me, shutting off the water and calling for towels and a mop. We spent the first 15 minutes of their visit on our knees mopping the floor.
Sue is a doer—and the world is a better place because of the doers of the world. These are the people who are always ready to pitch in, to be involved, and even to lead if necessary.
Many of the doers of the world are also doers of the Word. These are the followers of Jesus who have taken the challenge of James to heart: “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (1:22).
Are you doing all that you know God wants you to do? As you read God’s Word, put what you’ve learned into practice. First hear—then do. God’s blessing comes as a result of our obedience (v.25).
We need to hear the Word of God
To know what we should do,
But listening is not enough
Without our follow-through. —Sper
The value of the Bible does not consist merely in knowing it, but in obeying it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 11th , 2010
The Spiritually Vigorous Saint
. . . that I may know Him . . . —Philippians 3:10
A saint is not to take the initiative toward self-realization, but toward knowing Jesus Christ. A spiritually vigorous saint never believes that his circumstances simply happen at random, nor does he ever think of his life as being divided into the secular and the sacred. He sees every situation in which he finds himself as the means of obtaining a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he has an attitude of unrestrained abandon and total surrender about him. The Holy Spirit is determined that we will have the realization of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives, and He will bring us back to the same point over and over again until we do. Self-realization only leads to the glorification of good works, whereas a saint of God glorifies Jesus Christ through his good works. Whatever we may be doing— even eating, drinking, or washing disciples’ feet— we have to take the initiative of realizing and recognizing Jesus Christ in it. Every phase of our life has its counterpart in the life of Jesus. Our Lord realized His relationship to the Father even in the most menial task. “Jesus, knowing . . . that He had come from God and was going to God, . . . took a towel . . . and began to wash the disciples’ feet . . .” ( John 13:3-5 ).
The aim of a spiritually vigorous saint is “that I may know Him . . .” Do I know Him where I am today? If not, I am failing Him. I am not here for self-realization, but to know Jesus Christ. In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Romans 5, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: A New Heart
A New Heart
Posted: 09 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“You were taught to be made new in your hearts, to become a new person.” Ephesians 4:23
What if, for one day and one night, Jesus lives your life with his heart? Your heart gets the day off, and your life is led by the heart of the Christ. His priorities govern your actions. His passions drive your decisions. His love directs your behavior . . .
Would people notice a change? Would you still do what you had planned to do for the next twenty-four hours?
Romans 5
Developing Patience
1-2By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
3-5There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
6-8Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
9-11Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift
12-14You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
15-17Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
18-19Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 2 Cor. 11:22-33
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.
23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.
27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.
32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.
33 But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
The Price Of Involvement
July 10, 2010 — by David C. McCasland
. . . besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. —2 Corinthians 11:28
While making his landmark documentary about World War II, filmmaker Ken Burns and his colleagues watched thousands of hours of military footage. Scenes of the devastating Battle of Peleliu often invaded their dreams at night. Burns told Sacramento Bee reporter Rick Kushman, “You’re listening to the ghosts and echoes from an almost inexpressible past. If you do that, you put yourself into the emotional maelstrom.”
There’s a price to becoming involved in the struggles of others, whether artistically or spiritually. Paul experienced this in his work of sharing the gospel: “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (2 Cor. 11:28-29 NASB).
Oswald Chambers said we enter this spiritual struggle as we “deliberately identify ourselves with God’s interests in other people” and “find to our amazement that we have power to keep wonderfully poised in the center of it all.”
Paul realized that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Jesus paid the greatest price to be involved in our world, and He strengthens us as we share His love with others.
Though weak, you still can serve today
And follow Christ’s command;
Behind the lines or in the fray
In Jesus’ strength you stand. —Hess
If we obey God’s calling, He will provide the needed strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 10th , 2010
The Spiritually Lazy Saint
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . —Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative— our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
“Yes, I think it is right,” Peter said, “. . . to stir you up by reminding you . . .” (2 Peter 1:13 ). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up— someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up— all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement— He says, “Go and tell My brethren . . .” (Matthew 28:10 ).
A New Heart
Posted: 09 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“You were taught to be made new in your hearts, to become a new person.” Ephesians 4:23
What if, for one day and one night, Jesus lives your life with his heart? Your heart gets the day off, and your life is led by the heart of the Christ. His priorities govern your actions. His passions drive your decisions. His love directs your behavior . . .
Would people notice a change? Would you still do what you had planned to do for the next twenty-four hours?
Romans 5
Developing Patience
1-2By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
3-5There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!
6-8Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
9-11Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we're at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift
12-14You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
15-17Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
18-19Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 2 Cor. 11:22-33
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I.
23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers.
27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.
32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me.
33 But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.
The Price Of Involvement
July 10, 2010 — by David C. McCasland
. . . besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. —2 Corinthians 11:28
While making his landmark documentary about World War II, filmmaker Ken Burns and his colleagues watched thousands of hours of military footage. Scenes of the devastating Battle of Peleliu often invaded their dreams at night. Burns told Sacramento Bee reporter Rick Kushman, “You’re listening to the ghosts and echoes from an almost inexpressible past. If you do that, you put yourself into the emotional maelstrom.”
There’s a price to becoming involved in the struggles of others, whether artistically or spiritually. Paul experienced this in his work of sharing the gospel: “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (2 Cor. 11:28-29 NASB).
Oswald Chambers said we enter this spiritual struggle as we “deliberately identify ourselves with God’s interests in other people” and “find to our amazement that we have power to keep wonderfully poised in the center of it all.”
Paul realized that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Jesus paid the greatest price to be involved in our world, and He strengthens us as we share His love with others.
Though weak, you still can serve today
And follow Christ’s command;
Behind the lines or in the fray
In Jesus’ strength you stand. —Hess
If we obey God’s calling, He will provide the needed strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 10th , 2010
The Spiritually Lazy Saint
Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together . . . —Hebrews 10:24-25
We are all capable of being spiritually lazy saints. We want to stay off the rough roads of life, and our primary objective is to secure a peaceful retreat from the world. The ideas put forth in these verses from Hebrews 10 are those of stirring up one another and of keeping ourselves together. Both of these require initiative— our willingness to take the first step toward Christ-realization, not the initiative toward self-realization. To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes.
“Yes, I think it is right,” Peter said, “. . . to stir you up by reminding you . . .” (2 Peter 1:13 ). It is a most disturbing thing to be hit squarely in the stomach by someone being used of God to stir us up— someone who is full of spiritual activity. Simple active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work can actually be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The real danger in spiritual laziness is that we do not want to be stirred up— all we want to hear about is a spiritual retirement from the world. Yet Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement— He says, “Go and tell My brethren . . .” (Matthew 28:10 ).
Friday, July 9, 2010
2 Corinthians 9, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: Only Life
Only Life
Posted: 08 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“Be faithful, even if you have to die, and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10
Can you imagine a life with no death, only life? If you can, you can imagine heaven. For citizens of heaven wear the crown of life . . .
We are not made of steel, we are made of dust. And this life is not crowned with life, it is crowned with death.
The next life, however, is different.
2 Corinthians 9
1-2If I wrote any more on this relief offering for the poor Christians, I'd be repeating myself. I know you're on board and ready to go. I've been bragging about you all through Macedonia province, telling them, "Achaia province has been ready to go on this since last year." Your enthusiasm by now has spread to most of them.
3-5Now I'm sending the brothers to make sure you're ready, as I said you would be, so my bragging won't turn out to be just so much hot air. If some Macedonians and I happened to drop in on you and found you weren't prepared, we'd all be pretty red-faced—you and us—for acting so sure of ourselves. So to make sure there will be no slipup, I've recruited these brothers as an advance team to get you and your promised offering all ready before I get there. I want you to have all the time you need to make this offering in your own way. I don't want anything forced or hurried at the last minute.
6-7Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.
8-11God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,
He throws caution to the winds,
giving to the needy in reckless abandon.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.
This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.
12-15Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God. This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. You show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone. Meanwhile, moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they'll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need. Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Matthew 5:11-16
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Salt and Light
13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Show Up Before You Speak Up
July 9, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father. —Matthew 5:16
There was a time when a certain West Coast city may have been one of the most hostile places to the gospel in America. Posters in coffee shops advertised witchcraft meetings where you could learn to cast a spell on your enemies.
It was such a challenging environment for churches that they struggled to get building permits from the city council. And there was a lot of “woe is me” talk among church leaders. Until a group of pastors began to meet to pray regularly and then decided to take the love of Jesus into their city. They started a ministry to the homeless, to those suffering with AIDS, to teens at risk. Faithfully and intentionally they brought the love of Jesus to the needs of hurting people. Before long, the city agencies started calling on them for help. Better yet, the churches started growing as people responded to the gospel in action.
Which proves the point: Sometimes you’ve got to “show up” before you speak up. No one really wants to hear what we have to say about the love of Jesus until they’ve seen it in our lives (Matt. 5:16). Then even the most ardent opponents to the gospel may just be glad you’re in their town, their office, or their neighborhood. And then you just might be able to tell them about Jesus.
Let us go forth, as called of God,
Redeemed by Jesus’ precious blood;
His love to show, His life to live,
His message speak, His mercy give. —Whittle
When you share the gospel, make sure you live the gospel.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 9th , 2010
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, ’You cannot serve the Lord . . .’ —Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, “I cannot live a holy life,” but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. “You cannot serve the Lord . . .”— but you can place yourself in the proper position where God’s almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
“The people said to Joshua, ’No, but we will serve the Lord!” ( Joshua 24:21 ). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, “But God could never have called me to this. I’m too unworthy. It can’t mean me.” It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, “I will serve the Lord.”
We say, “Oh, if only I really could believe!” The question is, “Will I believe?” No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” ( Matthew 13:58 ). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Leaving the Life-Saving Station - #6130
Friday, July 9, 2010
There's a stretch of the Outer Banks of North Carolina that's known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." That's because hundreds of ships have been lost there over the centuries. So it was there that something called the United States Life-Saving Service was born. They established these white frame buildings called life-saving stations every seven miles along the very treacherous coast. The Life-Saving Service was a spawning ground really for heroes. In one case, for example, a ship was in distress with four men staying alive by just holding onto a mast. Six of the seven men from the closest station went out into a storm that could very well consume them - after leaving a verbal will with the man who was left running the station. After 22 hours without food or sleep, they brought those four stranded men back alive. Incredible heroism like that was the norm for these men of the life-saving stations.
One interesting observation: never in the history of the Life-Saving Service did a drowning person ever come to the door of their station and ask to be rescued. In every single rescue, the rescuers had to leave the safety of the life-saving station, go out into the surf and the storm to keep someone from dying.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Leaving the Life-Saving Station."
It's the nature of rescue. You have to leave the comfort of the life-saving station to save those who are dying outside. The life-saving station is a great place to get rescuers strong enough to go out into the storm to bring people in. And it's a great place to bring people after they've been rescued. But if we wait for dying people to come into the life-saving station to be rescued, most of them will die without a chance.
That's the nature of spiritual rescue. Over the years it's been known by many names - evangelism, soul-winning, witnessing. But we may have lost the urgency of what really is at stake. Every lost person you know who has never begun a personal relationship with Christ, every lost person within the reach of your church is, in the words of the Bible, "...perishing... staggering toward slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11), "...without hope and without God" (Ephesians 2:12), and ultimately, someone who will be forever, in the Bible's words, "...shut out from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). They are spiritually dying people, and their only hope is rescue by someone who is close enough to save them.
Sadly, we've been waiting for them to come to one of our meetings, our programs, our religious places, our life-saving station. But Jesus said in Luke 19:10, our word for today from the Word of God, that "the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." He said that in the house of a reviled tax collector, where Jesus had been criticized for going. But Jesus shows us that you have to go where the lost people are to rescue them. You have to seek them if you want to save them.
We keep having programs to rescue the dying - and few of them are ever there. The plan of God is for someone like you - an everyday follower of Jesus Christ - to be the one to rescue the dying people around you. If we have to go where the lost people are to rescue them, you already are where some of them are. Don't just let them go on dying. Leave the safe, comfortable spot and take some risks to rescue them. You follow the Man who left the comfort zone of heaven to risk it all, to give it all to rescue you. Now He's asking you to join Him in rescuing some others who will die forever without Him.
There is nothing greater you can do with your influence, nothing greater you can do with your life than to rescue someone who would have died otherwise; to help someone else be rescued from hell and be in heaven with you forever.
Only Life
Posted: 08 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“Be faithful, even if you have to die, and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10
Can you imagine a life with no death, only life? If you can, you can imagine heaven. For citizens of heaven wear the crown of life . . .
We are not made of steel, we are made of dust. And this life is not crowned with life, it is crowned with death.
The next life, however, is different.
2 Corinthians 9
1-2If I wrote any more on this relief offering for the poor Christians, I'd be repeating myself. I know you're on board and ready to go. I've been bragging about you all through Macedonia province, telling them, "Achaia province has been ready to go on this since last year." Your enthusiasm by now has spread to most of them.
3-5Now I'm sending the brothers to make sure you're ready, as I said you would be, so my bragging won't turn out to be just so much hot air. If some Macedonians and I happened to drop in on you and found you weren't prepared, we'd all be pretty red-faced—you and us—for acting so sure of ourselves. So to make sure there will be no slipup, I've recruited these brothers as an advance team to get you and your promised offering all ready before I get there. I want you to have all the time you need to make this offering in your own way. I don't want anything forced or hurried at the last minute.
6-7Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.
8-11God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you're ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,
He throws caution to the winds,
giving to the needy in reckless abandon.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.
This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.
12-15Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God. This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. You show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone. Meanwhile, moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they'll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need. Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Matthew 5:11-16
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Salt and Light
13 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
Show Up Before You Speak Up
July 9, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father. —Matthew 5:16
There was a time when a certain West Coast city may have been one of the most hostile places to the gospel in America. Posters in coffee shops advertised witchcraft meetings where you could learn to cast a spell on your enemies.
It was such a challenging environment for churches that they struggled to get building permits from the city council. And there was a lot of “woe is me” talk among church leaders. Until a group of pastors began to meet to pray regularly and then decided to take the love of Jesus into their city. They started a ministry to the homeless, to those suffering with AIDS, to teens at risk. Faithfully and intentionally they brought the love of Jesus to the needs of hurting people. Before long, the city agencies started calling on them for help. Better yet, the churches started growing as people responded to the gospel in action.
Which proves the point: Sometimes you’ve got to “show up” before you speak up. No one really wants to hear what we have to say about the love of Jesus until they’ve seen it in our lives (Matt. 5:16). Then even the most ardent opponents to the gospel may just be glad you’re in their town, their office, or their neighborhood. And then you just might be able to tell them about Jesus.
Let us go forth, as called of God,
Redeemed by Jesus’ precious blood;
His love to show, His life to live,
His message speak, His mercy give. —Whittle
When you share the gospel, make sure you live the gospel.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 9th , 2010
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, ’You cannot serve the Lord . . .’ —Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, “I cannot live a holy life,” but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. “You cannot serve the Lord . . .”— but you can place yourself in the proper position where God’s almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
“The people said to Joshua, ’No, but we will serve the Lord!” ( Joshua 24:21 ). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, “But God could never have called me to this. I’m too unworthy. It can’t mean me.” It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, “I will serve the Lord.”
We say, “Oh, if only I really could believe!” The question is, “Will I believe?” No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” ( Matthew 13:58 ). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Leaving the Life-Saving Station - #6130
Friday, July 9, 2010
There's a stretch of the Outer Banks of North Carolina that's known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." That's because hundreds of ships have been lost there over the centuries. So it was there that something called the United States Life-Saving Service was born. They established these white frame buildings called life-saving stations every seven miles along the very treacherous coast. The Life-Saving Service was a spawning ground really for heroes. In one case, for example, a ship was in distress with four men staying alive by just holding onto a mast. Six of the seven men from the closest station went out into a storm that could very well consume them - after leaving a verbal will with the man who was left running the station. After 22 hours without food or sleep, they brought those four stranded men back alive. Incredible heroism like that was the norm for these men of the life-saving stations.
One interesting observation: never in the history of the Life-Saving Service did a drowning person ever come to the door of their station and ask to be rescued. In every single rescue, the rescuers had to leave the safety of the life-saving station, go out into the surf and the storm to keep someone from dying.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Leaving the Life-Saving Station."
It's the nature of rescue. You have to leave the comfort of the life-saving station to save those who are dying outside. The life-saving station is a great place to get rescuers strong enough to go out into the storm to bring people in. And it's a great place to bring people after they've been rescued. But if we wait for dying people to come into the life-saving station to be rescued, most of them will die without a chance.
That's the nature of spiritual rescue. Over the years it's been known by many names - evangelism, soul-winning, witnessing. But we may have lost the urgency of what really is at stake. Every lost person you know who has never begun a personal relationship with Christ, every lost person within the reach of your church is, in the words of the Bible, "...perishing... staggering toward slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11), "...without hope and without God" (Ephesians 2:12), and ultimately, someone who will be forever, in the Bible's words, "...shut out from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). They are spiritually dying people, and their only hope is rescue by someone who is close enough to save them.
Sadly, we've been waiting for them to come to one of our meetings, our programs, our religious places, our life-saving station. But Jesus said in Luke 19:10, our word for today from the Word of God, that "the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." He said that in the house of a reviled tax collector, where Jesus had been criticized for going. But Jesus shows us that you have to go where the lost people are to rescue them. You have to seek them if you want to save them.
We keep having programs to rescue the dying - and few of them are ever there. The plan of God is for someone like you - an everyday follower of Jesus Christ - to be the one to rescue the dying people around you. If we have to go where the lost people are to rescue them, you already are where some of them are. Don't just let them go on dying. Leave the safe, comfortable spot and take some risks to rescue them. You follow the Man who left the comfort zone of heaven to risk it all, to give it all to rescue you. Now He's asking you to join Him in rescuing some others who will die forever without Him.
There is nothing greater you can do with your influence, nothing greater you can do with your life than to rescue someone who would have died otherwise; to help someone else be rescued from hell and be in heaven with you forever.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
2 Corinthians 8, Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: God’s Salvation
God’s Salvation
Posted: 07 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins.” I John 4:10
Please note: salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, and God-originated. The gift is not from man to God. It is from God to man . . .
Grace is created by God and given to man.
2 Corinthians 8
The Offering
1-4Now, friends, I want to report on the surprising and generous ways in which God is working in the churches in Macedonia province. Fierce troubles came down on the people of those churches, pushing them to the very limit. The trial exposed their true colors: They were incredibly happy, though desperately poor. The pressure triggered something totally unexpected: an outpouring of pure and generous gifts. I was there and saw it for myself. They gave offerings of whatever they could—far more than they could afford!—pleading for the privilege of helping out in the relief of poor Christians.
5-7This was totally spontaneous, entirely their own idea, and caught us completely off guard. What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us. The other giving simply flowed out of the purposes of God working in their lives. That's what prompted us to ask Titus to bring the relief offering to your attention, so that what was so well begun could be finished up. You do so well in so many things—you trust God, you're articulate, you're insightful, you're passionate, you love us—now, do your best in this, too.
8-9I'm not trying to order you around against your will. But by bringing in the Macedonians' enthusiasm as a stimulus to your love, I am hoping to bring the best out of you. You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us—in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.
10-20So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands. This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even. As it is written,
Nothing left over to the one with the most,
Nothing lacking to the one with the least.
I thank God for giving Titus the same devoted concern for you that I have. He was most considerate of how we felt, but his eagerness to go to you and help out with this relief offering is his own idea. We're sending a companion along with him, someone very popular in the churches for his preaching of the Message. But there's far more to him than popularity. He's rock-solid trustworthy. The churches handpicked him to go with us as we travel about doing this work of sharing God's gifts to honor God as well as we can, taking every precaution against scandal.
20-22We don't want anyone suspecting us of taking one penny of this money for ourselves. We're being as careful in our reputation with the public as in our reputation with God. That's why we're sending another trusted friend along. He's proved his dependability many times over, and carries on as energetically as the day he started. He's heard much about you, and liked what he's heard—so much so that he can't wait to get there.
23-24I don't need to say anything further about Titus. We've been close associates in this work of serving you for a long time. The brothers who travel with him are delegates from churches, a real credit to Christ. Show them what you're made of, the love I've been talking up in the churches. Let them see it for themselves!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Matthew 24:36-44
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
False Predictions
July 8, 2010 — by C. P. Hia
Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? —Matthew 24:3
News that a solar eclipse would take place on July 22, 2009, brought an alarming prediction. It was predicted that the eclipse would sufficiently affect gravitational pull, causing tectonic plates to “pop a seam,” resulting in a sizable earthquake and a subsequent devastating tsunami in Japan. The US Geological Survey responded that no scientists “have ever predicted a major earthquake. They do not know how, and they do not expect to know how, anytime in the foreseeable future.”
There have also been many false predictions about the date of Christ’s second coming—despite our Lord’s emphatic words: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matt. 24:36). Christ told His followers that instead of trying to predict the date of His return, they should “watch” (v.42) and “be ready” (v.44).
Peter warned, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief.” Then he added: “What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:10-11 NIV).
Striving to live for God—that’s what Jesus wants us to focus our energy on while we wait for that “blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
When someone says, “I can discern
Exactly when Christ will return,”
Don’t be deceived or led astray—
The Lord said we can’t know the day. —Sper
Look for Christ’s return, and you’ll live for Christ’s glory.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 8th , 2010
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . —Joshua 24:15
A person’s will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will— I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God’s Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
“. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . .” Your choice must be a deliberate determination— it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God— do not “confer with flesh and blood” about it ( Galatians 1:16 ). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading— the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, “I will be faithful.” But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, “You are witnesses against yourselves . . .” ( Joshua 24:22 ). Don’t consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, “I will serve You.” Will to be faithful— and give other people credit for being faithful too.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
When Only Blood Could Do it - #6129
Thursday, July 8, 2010
He's a noted surgeon who wants to make a difference in the world. So once a year, he dedicates a month to going to Central America to do volunteer medical work. Not long ago, he was in an emergency medical clinic performing urgent surgery on a young boy. It was in a very remote location. The boy started losing blood faster than expected, and he clearly needed blood. The problem was that he had a rare blood type that only two percent of the population carries. And this village clinic certainly didn't have anything that rare. In that critical moment, the doctor suddenly put down his scalpel and went to another room - where he gave blood. He, too, had that rare blood. The boy got the blood he needed, the surgeon returned to finish the operation, and the boy came through just fine.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Only Blood Could Do it."
A boy's life hanging in the balance; his only hope - blood given by the only one who had what it took to save him. Boy, I understand that. Mine was once a life hanging in the balance, and my only hope was the gift of someone's blood - the only One who had the blood that could meet my need.
Some have called Him the Great Physician. Many call Him Savior. We all call Him Jesus. And my only hope of escaping the spiritual death penalty for the sins of my life was blood - His blood; the blood of the only Man who had no sin of His own to pay for - God's one and only Son. No matter what religion you are, no matter how religious or spiritual you are, His blood is your only hope, too.
All of our theories, all of our systems for getting to God and getting to heaven are, at best, guesswork. Only God can tell us what it takes to get to Him; to be forgiven of that sin that makes it impossible for Him to have a relationship with us. And God does tell us in Hebrews 9:22, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Sin carries the eternal death penalty of being separated from our God now and forever. And a death penalty cannot be paid by doing nice things. Someone has to die; and Someone did. Hebrews 9:26, our word for today from the Word of God, says of Christ: "Now He has appeared once for all...to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Incredibly, Jesus said to God the Father, "Let Me die so Ron doesn't have to." You could put your name there. "Father, let Me die so Davis doesn't have to."
If you get to the end of your life and you find out that you have missed heaven, that your eternal destination turned out to be hell, don't blame God. He gave His only Son to die so you would not have to go there. If a rescuer extends his hand and you don't grab his hand, don't blame the rescuer. In this case, the Rescuer is God's Son, reaching for you. He didn't just donate blood so you could be saved. He poured out His life-blood, dying for you. It's the blood of Jesus that could cover every sin of your life. It is because of that blood shed for you that God is willing to say to you today, "You are forgiven. You are clean. You are Mine forever." You can see why what you do with Jesus is the decisive choice of your life. God will never forget what you do with His Son, because He gave His Son for you.
This is a spiritual rescue we're talking about. And your only hope is to grab the hand of Jesus, God's rescuer, with all the faith you've got. That step will trigger a cleansing miracle of God. In the Bible's words, "The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Every sin you've ever committed, erased from God's book forever today, if you will tell Jesus that you are His from this day on - that His blood, shed for you, is your only hope.
At our website, I've got a brief explanation of just how to begin this life-giving relationship with Jesus. If God is stirring in your heart at all, would you check out the website YoursForLife.net.
There's an old hymn that says it pretty powerfully: "Just as I am, without one plea, but that Your blood was shed for me. And that You bid me come to Thee. O Lamb of God, I come."
God’s Salvation
Posted: 07 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us in sending his Son to be the way to take away our sins.” I John 4:10
Please note: salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, and God-originated. The gift is not from man to God. It is from God to man . . .
Grace is created by God and given to man.
2 Corinthians 8
The Offering
1-4Now, friends, I want to report on the surprising and generous ways in which God is working in the churches in Macedonia province. Fierce troubles came down on the people of those churches, pushing them to the very limit. The trial exposed their true colors: They were incredibly happy, though desperately poor. The pressure triggered something totally unexpected: an outpouring of pure and generous gifts. I was there and saw it for myself. They gave offerings of whatever they could—far more than they could afford!—pleading for the privilege of helping out in the relief of poor Christians.
5-7This was totally spontaneous, entirely their own idea, and caught us completely off guard. What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us. The other giving simply flowed out of the purposes of God working in their lives. That's what prompted us to ask Titus to bring the relief offering to your attention, so that what was so well begun could be finished up. You do so well in so many things—you trust God, you're articulate, you're insightful, you're passionate, you love us—now, do your best in this, too.
8-9I'm not trying to order you around against your will. But by bringing in the Macedonians' enthusiasm as a stimulus to your love, I am hoping to bring the best out of you. You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us—in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.
10-20So here's what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart regulates the hands. This isn't so others can take it easy while you sweat it out. No, you're shoulder to shoulder with them all the way, your surplus matching their deficit, their surplus matching your deficit. In the end you come out even. As it is written,
Nothing left over to the one with the most,
Nothing lacking to the one with the least.
I thank God for giving Titus the same devoted concern for you that I have. He was most considerate of how we felt, but his eagerness to go to you and help out with this relief offering is his own idea. We're sending a companion along with him, someone very popular in the churches for his preaching of the Message. But there's far more to him than popularity. He's rock-solid trustworthy. The churches handpicked him to go with us as we travel about doing this work of sharing God's gifts to honor God as well as we can, taking every precaution against scandal.
20-22We don't want anyone suspecting us of taking one penny of this money for ourselves. We're being as careful in our reputation with the public as in our reputation with God. That's why we're sending another trusted friend along. He's proved his dependability many times over, and carries on as energetically as the day he started. He's heard much about you, and liked what he's heard—so much so that he can't wait to get there.
23-24I don't need to say anything further about Titus. We've been close associates in this work of serving you for a long time. The brothers who travel with him are delegates from churches, a real credit to Christ. Show them what you're made of, the love I've been talking up in the churches. Let them see it for themselves!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Matthew 24:36-44
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
False Predictions
July 8, 2010 — by C. P. Hia
Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age? —Matthew 24:3
News that a solar eclipse would take place on July 22, 2009, brought an alarming prediction. It was predicted that the eclipse would sufficiently affect gravitational pull, causing tectonic plates to “pop a seam,” resulting in a sizable earthquake and a subsequent devastating tsunami in Japan. The US Geological Survey responded that no scientists “have ever predicted a major earthquake. They do not know how, and they do not expect to know how, anytime in the foreseeable future.”
There have also been many false predictions about the date of Christ’s second coming—despite our Lord’s emphatic words: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matt. 24:36). Christ told His followers that instead of trying to predict the date of His return, they should “watch” (v.42) and “be ready” (v.44).
Peter warned, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief.” Then he added: “What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:10-11 NIV).
Striving to live for God—that’s what Jesus wants us to focus our energy on while we wait for that “blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).
When someone says, “I can discern
Exactly when Christ will return,”
Don’t be deceived or led astray—
The Lord said we can’t know the day. —Sper
Look for Christ’s return, and you’ll live for Christ’s glory.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 8th , 2010
Will To Be Faithful
. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . —Joshua 24:15
A person’s will is embodied in the actions of the whole person. I cannot give up my will— I must exercise it, putting it into action. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God’s Spirit. When God gives me a vision of truth, there is never a question of what He will do, but only of what I will do. The Lord has been placing in front of each of us some big proposals and plans. The best thing to do is to remember what you did before when you were touched by God. Recall the moment when you were saved, or first recognized Jesus, or realized some truth. It was easy then to yield your allegiance to God. Immediately recall those moments each time the Spirit of God brings some new proposal before you.
“. . . choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . .” Your choice must be a deliberate determination— it is not something into which you will automatically drift. And everything else in your life will be held in temporary suspension until you make a decision. The proposal is between you and God— do not “confer with flesh and blood” about it ( Galatians 1:16 ). With every new proposal, the people around us seem to become more and more isolated, and that is where the tension develops. God allows the opinion of His other saints to matter to you, and yet you become less and less certain that others really understand the step you are taking. You have no business trying to find out where God is leading— the only thing God will explain to you is Himself.
Openly declare to Him, “I will be faithful.” But remember that as soon as you choose to be faithful to Jesus Christ, “You are witnesses against yourselves . . .” ( Joshua 24:22 ). Don’t consult with other Christians, but simply and freely declare before Him, “I will serve You.” Will to be faithful— and give other people credit for being faithful too.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
When Only Blood Could Do it - #6129
Thursday, July 8, 2010
He's a noted surgeon who wants to make a difference in the world. So once a year, he dedicates a month to going to Central America to do volunteer medical work. Not long ago, he was in an emergency medical clinic performing urgent surgery on a young boy. It was in a very remote location. The boy started losing blood faster than expected, and he clearly needed blood. The problem was that he had a rare blood type that only two percent of the population carries. And this village clinic certainly didn't have anything that rare. In that critical moment, the doctor suddenly put down his scalpel and went to another room - where he gave blood. He, too, had that rare blood. The boy got the blood he needed, the surgeon returned to finish the operation, and the boy came through just fine.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Only Blood Could Do it."
A boy's life hanging in the balance; his only hope - blood given by the only one who had what it took to save him. Boy, I understand that. Mine was once a life hanging in the balance, and my only hope was the gift of someone's blood - the only One who had the blood that could meet my need.
Some have called Him the Great Physician. Many call Him Savior. We all call Him Jesus. And my only hope of escaping the spiritual death penalty for the sins of my life was blood - His blood; the blood of the only Man who had no sin of His own to pay for - God's one and only Son. No matter what religion you are, no matter how religious or spiritual you are, His blood is your only hope, too.
All of our theories, all of our systems for getting to God and getting to heaven are, at best, guesswork. Only God can tell us what it takes to get to Him; to be forgiven of that sin that makes it impossible for Him to have a relationship with us. And God does tell us in Hebrews 9:22, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." Sin carries the eternal death penalty of being separated from our God now and forever. And a death penalty cannot be paid by doing nice things. Someone has to die; and Someone did. Hebrews 9:26, our word for today from the Word of God, says of Christ: "Now He has appeared once for all...to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Incredibly, Jesus said to God the Father, "Let Me die so Ron doesn't have to." You could put your name there. "Father, let Me die so Davis doesn't have to."
If you get to the end of your life and you find out that you have missed heaven, that your eternal destination turned out to be hell, don't blame God. He gave His only Son to die so you would not have to go there. If a rescuer extends his hand and you don't grab his hand, don't blame the rescuer. In this case, the Rescuer is God's Son, reaching for you. He didn't just donate blood so you could be saved. He poured out His life-blood, dying for you. It's the blood of Jesus that could cover every sin of your life. It is because of that blood shed for you that God is willing to say to you today, "You are forgiven. You are clean. You are Mine forever." You can see why what you do with Jesus is the decisive choice of your life. God will never forget what you do with His Son, because He gave His Son for you.
This is a spiritual rescue we're talking about. And your only hope is to grab the hand of Jesus, God's rescuer, with all the faith you've got. That step will trigger a cleansing miracle of God. In the Bible's words, "The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Every sin you've ever committed, erased from God's book forever today, if you will tell Jesus that you are His from this day on - that His blood, shed for you, is your only hope.
At our website, I've got a brief explanation of just how to begin this life-giving relationship with Jesus. If God is stirring in your heart at all, would you check out the website YoursForLife.net.
There's an old hymn that says it pretty powerfully: "Just as I am, without one plea, but that Your blood was shed for me. And that You bid me come to Thee. O Lamb of God, I come."
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