Max Lucado Daily: The Authoritative Word
Let God's Word be the authoritative word in your world! It's a decision that rubs against the skin of our culture. We prefer the authority of the voting booth, pollster, or whatever feels good.
Paul reminded the young pastor, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:15: "Since you were a child you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise." And in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Paul states the power of Scripture against any stronghold. "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
These are verses I invite you to memorize with me in a Scripture Memory Challenge-a verse a week for the next 4 weeks.
Get started at GloryDaysToday.com!
An Unmoving Target
Don't chart your course according to the opinions of people or suggestions of culture. If you do, you'll make the mistake the farmer's son made. He sent the boy to prepare a field, reminding him to till straight lines.
"Select an object on the far side of the field, and plow straight to it," the father said.
Later when the father checked on the boy's progress, every row was uneven and wavy. He said, "I thought I told you to select an object and plow toward it."
"I did," the boy answered, "but the rabbit kept hopping,"
A straight line, like a good life, requires an unmoving target. Set your sights on the unchanging principles of God. Let God's Word be the authoritative word in your world.
I invite you to memorize God's Word-a new verse every week for four weeks. Join me at GloryDaysToday.com.
Isaiah 26
Stretch the Borders of Life
At that time, this song
will be sung in the country of Judah:
We have a strong city, Salvation City,
built and fortified with salvation.
Throw wide the gates
so good and true people can enter.
People with their minds set on you,
you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,
because they keep at it and don’t quit.
Depend on God and keep at it
because in the Lord God you have a sure thing.
Those who lived high and mighty
he knocked off their high horse.
He used the city built on the hill
as fill for the marshes.
All the exploited and outcast peoples
build their lives on the reclaimed land.
7-10 The path of right-living people is level.
The Leveler evens the road for the right-living.
We’re in no hurry, God. We’re content to linger
in the path sign-posted with your decisions.
Who you are and what you’ve done
are all we’ll ever want.
Through the night my soul longs for you.
Deep from within me my spirit reaches out to you.
When your decisions are on public display,
everyone learns how to live right.
If the wicked are shown grace,
they don’t seem to get it.
In the land of right living, they persist in wrong living,
blind to the splendor of God.
11-15 You hold your hand up high, God,
but they don’t see it.
Open their eyes to what you do,
to see your zealous love for your people.
Shame them. Light a fire under them.
Get the attention of these enemies of yours.
God, order a peaceful and whole life for us
because everything we’ve done, you’ve done for us.
O God, our God, we’ve had other masters rule us,
but you’re the only Master we’ve ever known.
The dead don’t talk,
ghosts don’t walk,
Because you’ve said, “Enough—that’s all for you,”
and wiped them off the books.
But the living you make larger than life.
The more life you give, the more glory you display,
and stretch the borders to accommodate more living!
16-18 O God, they begged you for help when they were in trouble,
when your discipline was so heavy
they could barely whisper a prayer.
Like a woman having a baby,
writhing in distress, screaming her pain
as the baby is being born,
That’s how we were because of you, O God.
We were pregnant full-term.
We writhed in labor but bore no baby.
We gave birth to wind.
Nothing came of our labor.
We produced nothing living.
We couldn’t save the world.
19 But friends, your dead will live,
your corpses will get to their feet.
All you dead and buried,
wake up! Sing!
Your dew is morning dew
catching the first rays of sun,
The earth bursting with life,
giving birth to the dead.
20-21 Come, my people, go home
and shut yourselves in.
Go into seclusion for a while
until the punishing wrath is past,
Because God is sure to come from his place
to punish the wrong of the people on earth.
Earth itself will point out the bloodstains;
it will show where the murdered have been hidden away.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Read: 1 John 1:1–4
From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4 We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
INSIGHT:
In the Greek language in which it was originally penned, the verbs in 1 John 1:1–2 are in the perfect tense. They describe something completed in the past with abiding results into the present: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. . . . The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it.” These verses connect remarkably with John’s gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . Through him all things were made.”
Words That Matter
By Tim Gustafson
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes . . . this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 1 John 1:1
Early in my days of working as an editor for Our Daily Bread, I selected the cover verse for each month’s devotional. After a while, I began to wonder if it made a difference.
Not long after that, a reader wrote and described how she had prayed for her son for more than twenty years, yet he wanted nothing to do with Jesus. Then one day he stopped by to visit her, and he read the verse on the cover of the booklet that sat on her table. The Spirit used those words to convict him, and he gave his life to Jesus at that very moment.
Words that point us to Christ are always words that matter.
I don’t recall the verse or the woman’s name. But I’ll never forget the clarity of God’s message to me that day. He had chosen to answer a woman’s prayers through a verse selected nearly a year earlier. From a place beyond time, He brought the wonder of His presence to my work and His words.
John the disciple called Jesus “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). He wanted everyone to know what that meant. “We proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us,” he wrote of Jesus (v. 2). “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us” (v. 3).
There is nothing magical in putting words on a page. But there is life-changing power in the words of Scripture because they point us to the Word of life—Jesus.
Thank You, Father, that Your Word is living and powerful!
Words that point us to Christ are always words that matter.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 25, 2016
The “Go” of Relationship
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. —Matthew 5:41
Our Lord’s teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself— a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, “I am here for God to send me where He will.” Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you…” (John 15:16). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us— He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.
The Place of Help
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Ephesians 5:17-33 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: An Unmoving Target
Don't chart your course according to the opinions of people or suggestions of culture. If you do, you'll make the mistake the farmer's son made. He sent the boy to prepare a field, reminding him to till straight lines.
"Select an object on the far side of the field, and plow straight to it," the father said.
Later when the father checked on the boy's progress, every row was uneven and wavy. He said, "I thought I told you to select an object and plow toward it."
"I did," the boy answered, "but the rabbit kept hopping,"
A straight line, like a good life, requires an unmoving target. Set your sights on the unchanging principles of God. Let God's Word be the authoritative word in your world.
I invite you to memorize God's Word-a new verse every week for four weeks. Join me at GloryDaysToday.com.
Defined/Refined/Aligned
Our best days-our Glory Days-are ahead of us. God has a Promised Land for us to take. A Promised Land life in which Paul said in Romans 8:37, "we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us." In 2 Corinthians 4:16, he says we have a life in which we do not lose heart. It's a life defined by grace, refined by challenge, and aligned with a heavenly call. In God's land, we serve out of our giftedness and delight in our assignments. We may stumble, but we do not collapse. We boast only in Christ, trust only in God, and lean wholly on his power.
You and your Promised Land life-is yours for the taking! Your Glory Days await you. Are you ready to march? I invite you to join me at GloryDaysToday.com-to memorize God's Word as a powerful and useful weapon against any stronghold!
Ephesians 5:17-33
Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
18-20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Relationships
21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.
29-33 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Read: Psalm 78:1–8 |
An Asaph Psalm
Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
the marvelous things he has done.
5-8 He planted a witness in Jacob,
set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
so their children can trust in God,
Never forget the works of God
but keep his commands to the letter.
Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,
bullheaded and bad,
A fickle and faithless bunch
who never stayed true to God.
INSIGHT:
It is interesting that Psalm 78:2 makes reference to speaking in parables. Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 13:35. Jesus is the Master Teacher, and His primary teaching tool was the parable. A parable has been called “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Each story conveys an insight into God and the human condition. Yet in a very mysterious way, Jesus used parables to confound the wise. In Mark, Christ quoted Isaiah regarding the lack of spiritual understanding of those who have hardened hearts. He said he spoke in parables so that “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!” (4:12).
Pass It On
By Lawrence Darmani
We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord. Psalm 78:4
I enjoy watching relay races. The physical strength, speed, skill, and endurance required of the athletes amaze me. But one crucial point of the race always gets my special attention and makes me anxious. It is the moment the baton is passed to the next athlete. One moment of delay, one slip, and the race could be lost.
In a sense, Christians are in a relay race, carrying the baton of faith and the knowledge of the Lord and of His Word. And the Bible tells us about our need to pass this baton from one generation to another. In Psalm 78, Asaph declares: “I will utter . . . things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us . . . . We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done” (vv. 2–4).
We influence future generations by living for Christ today.
Moses said something similar to the Israelites: “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deut. 4:9).
For generations to come, we are called to lovingly and courageously do whatever we can to pass along “the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Father, help me to be faithful in passing my faith along to someone else.
Share with us at odb.org/story the ways you are passing along your faith to the next generation.
We influence future generations by living for Christ today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 24, 2016
The “Go” of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. —Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord’s words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. “…go your way. First be reconciled to your brother….” The “go” of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don’t just admit it— confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, “I will not give up my right to myself”— the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
Don't chart your course according to the opinions of people or suggestions of culture. If you do, you'll make the mistake the farmer's son made. He sent the boy to prepare a field, reminding him to till straight lines.
"Select an object on the far side of the field, and plow straight to it," the father said.
Later when the father checked on the boy's progress, every row was uneven and wavy. He said, "I thought I told you to select an object and plow toward it."
"I did," the boy answered, "but the rabbit kept hopping,"
A straight line, like a good life, requires an unmoving target. Set your sights on the unchanging principles of God. Let God's Word be the authoritative word in your world.
I invite you to memorize God's Word-a new verse every week for four weeks. Join me at GloryDaysToday.com.
Defined/Refined/Aligned
Our best days-our Glory Days-are ahead of us. God has a Promised Land for us to take. A Promised Land life in which Paul said in Romans 8:37, "we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us." In 2 Corinthians 4:16, he says we have a life in which we do not lose heart. It's a life defined by grace, refined by challenge, and aligned with a heavenly call. In God's land, we serve out of our giftedness and delight in our assignments. We may stumble, but we do not collapse. We boast only in Christ, trust only in God, and lean wholly on his power.
You and your Promised Land life-is yours for the taking! Your Glory Days await you. Are you ready to march? I invite you to join me at GloryDaysToday.com-to memorize God's Word as a powerful and useful weapon against any stronghold!
Ephesians 5:17-33
Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
18-20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Relationships
21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.
29-33 No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That’s how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become “one flesh.” This is a huge mystery, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Read: Psalm 78:1–8 |
An Asaph Psalm
Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
the marvelous things he has done.
5-8 He planted a witness in Jacob,
set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
so their children can trust in God,
Never forget the works of God
but keep his commands to the letter.
Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,
bullheaded and bad,
A fickle and faithless bunch
who never stayed true to God.
INSIGHT:
It is interesting that Psalm 78:2 makes reference to speaking in parables. Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 13:35. Jesus is the Master Teacher, and His primary teaching tool was the parable. A parable has been called “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Each story conveys an insight into God and the human condition. Yet in a very mysterious way, Jesus used parables to confound the wise. In Mark, Christ quoted Isaiah regarding the lack of spiritual understanding of those who have hardened hearts. He said he spoke in parables so that “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!” (4:12).
Pass It On
By Lawrence Darmani
We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord. Psalm 78:4
I enjoy watching relay races. The physical strength, speed, skill, and endurance required of the athletes amaze me. But one crucial point of the race always gets my special attention and makes me anxious. It is the moment the baton is passed to the next athlete. One moment of delay, one slip, and the race could be lost.
In a sense, Christians are in a relay race, carrying the baton of faith and the knowledge of the Lord and of His Word. And the Bible tells us about our need to pass this baton from one generation to another. In Psalm 78, Asaph declares: “I will utter . . . things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us . . . . We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done” (vv. 2–4).
We influence future generations by living for Christ today.
Moses said something similar to the Israelites: “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deut. 4:9).
For generations to come, we are called to lovingly and courageously do whatever we can to pass along “the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Father, help me to be faithful in passing my faith along to someone else.
Share with us at odb.org/story the ways you are passing along your faith to the next generation.
We influence future generations by living for Christ today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 24, 2016
The “Go” of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. —Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord’s words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. “…go your way. First be reconciled to your brother….” The “go” of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don’t just admit it— confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, “I will not give up my right to myself”— the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
Friday, September 23, 2016
Isaiah 25, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LIFE IS A REQUIRED COURSE
God can make something good out of your mess! The test you are experiencing will become your testimony. 2 Corinthians 1:4-5 says that God comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone who’s going through hard times so we can be there for that person, just as God was there for us.
You didn’t sign up for this crash course in single parenting? No, but God enrolled you. He has taken the intended evil and rewoven it into this curriculum. Why? So you can teach others what He’s taught you. Rather than say, “God why?” ask “God, what?” What can I learn from this experience? Rather than ask God to change your circumstances, ask Him to use your circumstances to change you. Life is a required course. Might as well do your best to pass it! You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 25
God’s Hand Rests on This Mountain
God, you are my God.
I celebrate you. I praise you.
You’ve done your share of miracle-wonders,
well-thought-out plans, solid and sure.
Here you’ve reduced the city to rubble,
the strong city to a pile of stones.
The enemy Big City is a non-city,
never to be a city again.
Superpowers will see it and honor you,
brutal oppressors bow in worshipful reverence.
They’ll see that you take care of the poor,
that you take care of poor people in trouble,
Provide a warm, dry place in bad weather,
provide a cool place when it’s hot.
Brutal oppressors are like a winter blizzard
and vicious foreigners like high noon in the desert.
But you, shelter from the storm and shade from the sun,
shut the mouths of the big-mouthed bullies.
6-8 But here on this mountain, God-of-the-Angel-Armies
will throw a feast for all the people of the world,
A feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines,
a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts.
And here on this mountain, God will banish
the pall of doom hanging over all peoples,
The shadow of doom darkening all nations.
Yes, he’ll banish death forever.
And God will wipe the tears from every face.
He’ll remove every sign of disgrace
From his people, wherever they are.
Yes! God says so!
9-10 Also at that time, people will say,
“Look at what’s happened! This is our God!
We waited for him and he showed up and saved us!
This God, the one we waited for!
Let’s celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation.
God’s hand rests on this mountain!”
10-12 As for the Moabites, they’ll be treated like refuse,
waste shoveled into a cesspool.
Thrash away as they will,
like swimmers trying to stay afloat,
They’ll sink in the sewage.
Their pride will pull them under.
Their famous fortifications will crumble to nothing,
those mighty walls reduced to dust.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 23, 2016
Read: Isaiah 50:4–10
The Master, God, has given me
a well-taught tongue,
So I know how to encourage tired people.
He wakes me up in the morning,
Wakes me up, opens my ears
to listen as one ready to take orders.
The Master, God, opened my ears,
and I didn’t go back to sleep,
didn’t pull the covers back over my head.
I followed orders,
stood there and took it while they beat me,
held steady while they pulled out my beard,
Didn’t dodge their insults,
faced them as they spit in my face.
And the Master, God, stays right there and helps me,
so I’m not disgraced.
Therefore I set my face like flint,
confident that I’ll never regret this.
My champion is right here.
Let’s take our stand together!
Who dares bring suit against me?
Let him try!
Look! the Master, God, is right here.
Who would dare call me guilty?
Look! My accusers are a clothes bin of threadbare
socks and shirts, fodder for moths!
10-11 Who out there fears God,
actually listens to the voice of his servant?
For anyone out there who doesn’t know where you’re going,
anyone groping in the dark,
Here’s what: Trust in God.
Lean on your God!
But if all you’re after is making trouble,
playing with fire,
Go ahead and see where it gets you.
Set your fires, stir people up, blow on the flames,
But don’t expect me to just stand there and watch.
I’ll hold your feet to those flames.
INSIGHT:
The Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary gives this description of Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant: “[In Isaiah 50:1–11] it is revealed how the Servant learned through his own rejection to comfort the weary and discouraged. The phrase ‘Sovereign Lord’ occurs four times and may be better translated ‘My Master God.’ It emphasized that the Servant had a Master (God) to whom he submitted and in whom he found help. The ‘words of wisdom’ (50:4) was a reference to his speaking or prophetic ministry. The followers of the Servant were called upon to trust in God, who would bring judgment upon the disobedient (50:10–11).”
Words for the Weary
By David McCasland
The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. Isaiah 50:4
A few days after his father died, 30-year-old C. S. Lewis received a letter from a woman who had cared for his mother during her illness and death more than two decades earlier. The woman offered her sympathy for his loss and wondered if he remembered her. “My dear Nurse Davison,” Lewis replied. “Remember you? I should think I do.”
Lewis recalled how much her presence in their home had meant to him as well as to his brother and father during a difficult time. He thanked her for her words of sympathy and said, “It is really comforting to be taken back to those old days. The time during which you were with my mother seemed very long to a child and you became part of home.”
Help me to speak words of hope and encouragement to others.
When we struggle in the circumstances of life, an encouraging word from others can lift our spirits and our eyes to the Lord. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote, “The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary” (50:4). And when we look to the Lord, He offers words of hope and light in the darkness.
Heavenly Father, help me to hear Your word of hope today. And help me to speak words of hope and encouragement to others, pointing them to You.
Kind words can lift a heavy heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 23, 2016
The Missionary’s Goal
He…said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem…" —Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him— “…till we all come…to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…” (Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord’s life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go “up to Jerusalem.”
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our “Jerusalem.” There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going “up to [our] Jerusalem.”
“…there they crucified Him…” (Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord’s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, “I too go ‘up to Jerusalem.’ ”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 23, 2016
Only An Interruption - #7750
Years ago when I went on my first international ministry trip, I went just about as far as you can go – 10,000 miles to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. I was going to be away for three weeks, which was the longest I had ever left my wife and our three young children. My wife mobilized the kids to put little love notes all over and all through my luggage. We had a nice meal together on the way to the airport and then some special hugs and kisses at the airport. But I did have to go. And I'm not kidding you, it was a sad moment. My wife was trying to look like she was fine. The children were obviously hurting. I managed to hold myself together until I rounded the bend in the concourse, then I started wiping tears from my eyes. It was hard, but one thing made it OK. It was only temporary. We would be reunited.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Only an Interruption."
Life's partings are tough when someone we love slips into eternity. Death rips us up inside, and the grief is sometimes almost unbearable. But because of Jesus, it's almost unbearable. I know, because not long ago I was the one burying the woman I loved – almost unbearable. Why almost? Well, I belong to Jesus, and my honey did, so that's not the termination of our relationship. No, it's because of Christ, it's just an interruption. I'm so glad.
God describes this hope in our hurtingest times in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13. "We do not want you to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope." I'm glad God didn't say believers don't grieve, because we do. But we grieve with hope. He goes on to say, "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command and the dead in Christ will rise first." That's my Dad. That's my baby brother whose death brought our family to Christ. That's my grandparents. It's more and more of my friends and the woman I loved for a lifetime.
The Bible goes on to say, "After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so will we be with the Lord forever." Wow! When Jesus walked out of His grave, He conquered death for all those who would ever give their lives to Him. It doesn't mean our heart won't stop some day in this earth-suit called our body, it will die. But it means the real you, your soul, will go on forever uninterrupted in God's great Heaven.
Is it any wonder the Bible says, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is, your victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:54, 55). You may be struggling with the loss of someone you love. I think I get that. The pain is very real. Death was never meant to be part of our lives. Sin brought in death. But Jesus died to pay the death penalty for our sin, and then, on Easter morning, He beat this monster that has beaten every person who ever lived.
So now, because of Jesus, the very worst death can be for a believer is an interruption of the relationship, never a termination. Hallelujah! And if you've never put your total trust in Jesus Christ to be your Savior from your sin and its death penalty, please don't risk another day without Him.
Would you tell Him, "Jesus, your death on the cross was to pay for my sin. It is my only hope of heaven. And the fact that You walked out of your grave proves that You can give eternal life that no one else can give. I'm Yours, Jesus, beginning this day." Would you kind of meet me at our website, ANeweStory.com? And there, find the path that will for sure guarantee you will be in heaven the moment after your heart stops; that will guarantee an eternity with Christ.
That day of my long trip...the pain, the tears were real. As they are on a much deeper level when someone we love is leaving us for eternity. But you can handle the leaving if you know what I knew that day at the airport...that this separation is only an interruption and the awesome reunion is coming.
God can make something good out of your mess! The test you are experiencing will become your testimony. 2 Corinthians 1:4-5 says that God comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone who’s going through hard times so we can be there for that person, just as God was there for us.
You didn’t sign up for this crash course in single parenting? No, but God enrolled you. He has taken the intended evil and rewoven it into this curriculum. Why? So you can teach others what He’s taught you. Rather than say, “God why?” ask “God, what?” What can I learn from this experience? Rather than ask God to change your circumstances, ask Him to use your circumstances to change you. Life is a required course. Might as well do your best to pass it! You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 25
God’s Hand Rests on This Mountain
God, you are my God.
I celebrate you. I praise you.
You’ve done your share of miracle-wonders,
well-thought-out plans, solid and sure.
Here you’ve reduced the city to rubble,
the strong city to a pile of stones.
The enemy Big City is a non-city,
never to be a city again.
Superpowers will see it and honor you,
brutal oppressors bow in worshipful reverence.
They’ll see that you take care of the poor,
that you take care of poor people in trouble,
Provide a warm, dry place in bad weather,
provide a cool place when it’s hot.
Brutal oppressors are like a winter blizzard
and vicious foreigners like high noon in the desert.
But you, shelter from the storm and shade from the sun,
shut the mouths of the big-mouthed bullies.
6-8 But here on this mountain, God-of-the-Angel-Armies
will throw a feast for all the people of the world,
A feast of the finest foods, a feast with vintage wines,
a feast of seven courses, a feast lavish with gourmet desserts.
And here on this mountain, God will banish
the pall of doom hanging over all peoples,
The shadow of doom darkening all nations.
Yes, he’ll banish death forever.
And God will wipe the tears from every face.
He’ll remove every sign of disgrace
From his people, wherever they are.
Yes! God says so!
9-10 Also at that time, people will say,
“Look at what’s happened! This is our God!
We waited for him and he showed up and saved us!
This God, the one we waited for!
Let’s celebrate, sing the joys of his salvation.
God’s hand rests on this mountain!”
10-12 As for the Moabites, they’ll be treated like refuse,
waste shoveled into a cesspool.
Thrash away as they will,
like swimmers trying to stay afloat,
They’ll sink in the sewage.
Their pride will pull them under.
Their famous fortifications will crumble to nothing,
those mighty walls reduced to dust.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 23, 2016
Read: Isaiah 50:4–10
The Master, God, has given me
a well-taught tongue,
So I know how to encourage tired people.
He wakes me up in the morning,
Wakes me up, opens my ears
to listen as one ready to take orders.
The Master, God, opened my ears,
and I didn’t go back to sleep,
didn’t pull the covers back over my head.
I followed orders,
stood there and took it while they beat me,
held steady while they pulled out my beard,
Didn’t dodge their insults,
faced them as they spit in my face.
And the Master, God, stays right there and helps me,
so I’m not disgraced.
Therefore I set my face like flint,
confident that I’ll never regret this.
My champion is right here.
Let’s take our stand together!
Who dares bring suit against me?
Let him try!
Look! the Master, God, is right here.
Who would dare call me guilty?
Look! My accusers are a clothes bin of threadbare
socks and shirts, fodder for moths!
10-11 Who out there fears God,
actually listens to the voice of his servant?
For anyone out there who doesn’t know where you’re going,
anyone groping in the dark,
Here’s what: Trust in God.
Lean on your God!
But if all you’re after is making trouble,
playing with fire,
Go ahead and see where it gets you.
Set your fires, stir people up, blow on the flames,
But don’t expect me to just stand there and watch.
I’ll hold your feet to those flames.
INSIGHT:
The Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary gives this description of Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant: “[In Isaiah 50:1–11] it is revealed how the Servant learned through his own rejection to comfort the weary and discouraged. The phrase ‘Sovereign Lord’ occurs four times and may be better translated ‘My Master God.’ It emphasized that the Servant had a Master (God) to whom he submitted and in whom he found help. The ‘words of wisdom’ (50:4) was a reference to his speaking or prophetic ministry. The followers of the Servant were called upon to trust in God, who would bring judgment upon the disobedient (50:10–11).”
Words for the Weary
By David McCasland
The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. Isaiah 50:4
A few days after his father died, 30-year-old C. S. Lewis received a letter from a woman who had cared for his mother during her illness and death more than two decades earlier. The woman offered her sympathy for his loss and wondered if he remembered her. “My dear Nurse Davison,” Lewis replied. “Remember you? I should think I do.”
Lewis recalled how much her presence in their home had meant to him as well as to his brother and father during a difficult time. He thanked her for her words of sympathy and said, “It is really comforting to be taken back to those old days. The time during which you were with my mother seemed very long to a child and you became part of home.”
Help me to speak words of hope and encouragement to others.
When we struggle in the circumstances of life, an encouraging word from others can lift our spirits and our eyes to the Lord. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote, “The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary” (50:4). And when we look to the Lord, He offers words of hope and light in the darkness.
Heavenly Father, help me to hear Your word of hope today. And help me to speak words of hope and encouragement to others, pointing them to You.
Kind words can lift a heavy heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 23, 2016
The Missionary’s Goal
He…said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem…" —Luke 18:31
In our natural life our ambitions change as we grow, but in the Christian life the goal is given at the very beginning, and the beginning and the end are exactly the same, namely, our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him— “…till we all come…to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ…” (Ephesians 4:13), not simply to our own idea of what the Christian life should be. The goal of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.
In our Lord’s life, Jerusalem was the place where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will upon the cross, and unless we go there with Jesus we will have no friendship or fellowship with Him. Nothing ever diverted our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned our Lord even the slightest degree away from His purpose to go “up to Jerusalem.”
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our “Jerusalem.” There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going “up to [our] Jerusalem.”
“…there they crucified Him…” (Luke 23:33). That is what happened when our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that event is the doorway to our salvation. The saints, however, do not end in crucifixion; by the Lord’s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword should be summed up by each of us saying, “I too go ‘up to Jerusalem.’ ”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 23, 2016
Only An Interruption - #7750
Years ago when I went on my first international ministry trip, I went just about as far as you can go – 10,000 miles to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. I was going to be away for three weeks, which was the longest I had ever left my wife and our three young children. My wife mobilized the kids to put little love notes all over and all through my luggage. We had a nice meal together on the way to the airport and then some special hugs and kisses at the airport. But I did have to go. And I'm not kidding you, it was a sad moment. My wife was trying to look like she was fine. The children were obviously hurting. I managed to hold myself together until I rounded the bend in the concourse, then I started wiping tears from my eyes. It was hard, but one thing made it OK. It was only temporary. We would be reunited.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Only an Interruption."
Life's partings are tough when someone we love slips into eternity. Death rips us up inside, and the grief is sometimes almost unbearable. But because of Jesus, it's almost unbearable. I know, because not long ago I was the one burying the woman I loved – almost unbearable. Why almost? Well, I belong to Jesus, and my honey did, so that's not the termination of our relationship. No, it's because of Christ, it's just an interruption. I'm so glad.
God describes this hope in our hurtingest times in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Thessalonians 4, beginning in verse 13. "We do not want you to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope." I'm glad God didn't say believers don't grieve, because we do. But we grieve with hope. He goes on to say, "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command and the dead in Christ will rise first." That's my Dad. That's my baby brother whose death brought our family to Christ. That's my grandparents. It's more and more of my friends and the woman I loved for a lifetime.
The Bible goes on to say, "After that, we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so will we be with the Lord forever." Wow! When Jesus walked out of His grave, He conquered death for all those who would ever give their lives to Him. It doesn't mean our heart won't stop some day in this earth-suit called our body, it will die. But it means the real you, your soul, will go on forever uninterrupted in God's great Heaven.
Is it any wonder the Bible says, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is, your victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:54, 55). You may be struggling with the loss of someone you love. I think I get that. The pain is very real. Death was never meant to be part of our lives. Sin brought in death. But Jesus died to pay the death penalty for our sin, and then, on Easter morning, He beat this monster that has beaten every person who ever lived.
So now, because of Jesus, the very worst death can be for a believer is an interruption of the relationship, never a termination. Hallelujah! And if you've never put your total trust in Jesus Christ to be your Savior from your sin and its death penalty, please don't risk another day without Him.
Would you tell Him, "Jesus, your death on the cross was to pay for my sin. It is my only hope of heaven. And the fact that You walked out of your grave proves that You can give eternal life that no one else can give. I'm Yours, Jesus, beginning this day." Would you kind of meet me at our website, ANeweStory.com? And there, find the path that will for sure guarantee you will be in heaven the moment after your heart stops; that will guarantee an eternity with Christ.
That day of my long trip...the pain, the tears were real. As they are on a much deeper level when someone we love is leaving us for eternity. But you can handle the leaving if you know what I knew that day at the airport...that this separation is only an interruption and the awesome reunion is coming.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Isaiah 24 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: TRUST HIS TRAINING
Each day has a pop quiz! And some seasons are like final exams. Brutal, sudden pitfalls of stress, sickness, or sadness. What is the purpose of the test? James 1:3-4 says, “For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
Test, test, test! This chapter in your life may look like rehab, smell like unemployment, sound like a hospital, but you are in training. God hasn’t forgotten you—just the opposite. He has chosen to train you. Forget the notion that God doesn’t see your struggle. Quite the contrary. God is fully engaged. He is the Potter, we are the clay. He’s the Shepherd, we’re the sheep. He is the Teacher, we are the students. Trust His training. You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 24
The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth
See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth
and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants—
2 it will be the same
for priest as for people,
for the master as for his servant,
for the mistress as for her servant,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.
3 The earth will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The Lord has spoken this word.
4 The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers,
the heavens languish with the earth.
5 The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,
and very few are left.
7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers;
all the merrymakers groan.
8 The joyful timbrels are stilled,
the noise of the revelers has stopped,
the joyful harp is silent.
9 No longer do they drink wine with a song;
the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The ruined city lies desolate;
the entrance to every house is barred.
11 In the streets they cry out for wine;
all joy turns to gloom,
all joyful sounds are banished from the earth.
12 The city is left in ruins,
its gate is battered to pieces.
13 So will it be on the earth
and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
14 They raise their voices, they shout for joy;
from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.
15 Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;
exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,
in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing:
“Glory to the Righteous One.”
But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!
Woe to me!
The treacherous betray!
With treachery the treacherous betray!”
17 Terror and pit and snare await you,
people of the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror
will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit
will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened,
the foundations of the earth shake.
19 The earth is broken up,
the earth is split asunder,
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth reels like a drunkard,
it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion
that it falls—never to rise again.
21 In that day the Lord will punish
the powers in the heavens above
and the kings on the earth below.
22 They will be herded together
like prisoners bound in a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison
and be punished[d] after many days.
23 The moon will be dismayed,
the sun ashamed;
for the Lord Almighty will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before its elders—with great glory.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Read: Psalm 100
A Thanksgiving Psalm
On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn’t make him.
We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 100 is poetry packed with image-rich language. When the psalmist says we are the Lord’s, this reminds us of His creative and redeeming work. The Bible tells us that if we have faith in Christ, we are His in at least two ways: We are His because He created us (Gen. 1:26–31) and because He has adopted us as His family (Eph. 1:5). The psalmist also uses the image of a sheep. We are “the sheep of His pasture.” We belong to Him and can enter His gates because we are under His care. Jesus Himself uses this image of sheep and gates in John 10:7–9 when explaining what it means to be saved.
The Gates of Worship
By Marvin Williams
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4
When you enter some of the greatest cities in the world, you can encounter famous gates such as the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), the Jaffa Gate (Jerusalem), and the gates at Downing Street (London). Whether the gates were built for defensive or ceremonial purposes, they all represent the difference between being outside or inside certain areas of the city. Some are open; some are closed to all but a few.
The gates into the presence of God are always open. The familiar song of Psalm 100 is an invitation for the Israelites to enter into the presence of God through the temple gates. They were told to “shout for joy” and “come before him with joyful songs” (vv. 1–2). Shouting for joy was an appropriate expression when greeting a monarch in the ancient world. All the earth was to sing joyfully about God! The reason for this joyful noise was that God had given them their identity (v. 3). They entered the gates with praise and thanksgiving because of God’s goodness and His steadfast and enduring love which continues through all generations (vv. 4–5). Even when they forgot their identity and wandered away from Him, God remained faithful and still invited them to enter His presence.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
What should motivate us to worship God? What statement of praise could you give to God today?
The gates into the presence of God are always open.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 22, 2016
The Missionary’s Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am ….I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master… —John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less— “…for One is your Teacher, the Christ…” (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord…”— but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it— a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 22, 2016
No Time to Pray, No Hope If I Don't - #7749
Kasey pretty much blew high school. He was on our ministry team and he was a walking miracle. The pain of his childhood set him up to make some lousy choices, like drugs for example. He quit high school. He was headed for a wasted life or an early death until he met Jesus at the age of 19. He left all the junk of his past behind him and started a passionate study of God's Word, like memorizing hundreds of verses! Kasey wanted to get college training, but he knew that meant taking the GED test to get a Graduation Equivalency Diploma. He had pretty much failed math, he failed English and all the subjects he was about to be tested on. They were timed tests, something like 25-50 minutes. But at the beginning of each test, he bowed his head and prayed for about 10 minutes. The teacher administering the test walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, but I think you're going to need all the time. It's challenging to get it done with all the minutes you've got. You've got no time to pray." Kasey's answer? "There's no hope if I don't."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Time to Pray, No Hope if I Don't."
Would you like to know how the praying test-taker did? Stay tuned. First, our word for today from the Word of God, Ephesians 6:18. It comes at the end of God's description of how to win your spiritual battles. This is the capstone verse, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Even when the pressure is really on? Even when you don't have time to pray? Especially when you don't have time!
In spite of the fact that my friend had failed most of the subjects he was now being tested on, he didn't miss a single math question! And he only missed two questions in all his English testing! He totally aced those tests, finishing every one in time with 10 minutes of praying taken out of his time!
I want you to remember that picture. It's a living example of a truth that we desperately need to live on. Time spent in prayer is not time wasted, it is not time lost, it is time, believe it or not, that will save time and effort. It's time that can make things go much more smoothly and quickly than if you hadn't taken time with God about them.
God has made it clear that He wants to keep hearing from us, no matter what the squeeze we're in. In Luke 18:1, Jesus showed His disciples that "they should always pray and not give up." In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, God tells us to "pray continually". Not just in spiritual binges – continually!
The reason it's so hard for us to pray when things are really tight is because of where our trust really is. We say it's in God, but in reality we're really trusting in our work to get it done, our effort, our meetings, our persuasion, our planning. "You know, if I just work a little harder, if I make a better plan, if I convince a few more people," that's where our real faith is. And you can tell by the proportion of our time we put into our effort compared with the proportion of time we put into bringing it to our Heavenly Father.
Things happen when you pray that can make the job so much easier. As you linger in God's presence, you get breakthrough insights into people or situations, people you've been trying to change start changing, hard hearts get softened, resources get released and immovable obstacles start moving because you have made prayer your #1 method of getting things done. Did you get that? Prayer – your Number One method of getting it done.
There are miracles waiting for you if you will pay the price of praying when you feel like there's just no time for it. You may think there's no time to pray, when, in fact, there's no hope if you don't.
Each day has a pop quiz! And some seasons are like final exams. Brutal, sudden pitfalls of stress, sickness, or sadness. What is the purpose of the test? James 1:3-4 says, “For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
Test, test, test! This chapter in your life may look like rehab, smell like unemployment, sound like a hospital, but you are in training. God hasn’t forgotten you—just the opposite. He has chosen to train you. Forget the notion that God doesn’t see your struggle. Quite the contrary. God is fully engaged. He is the Potter, we are the clay. He’s the Shepherd, we’re the sheep. He is the Teacher, we are the students. Trust His training. You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 24
The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth
See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth
and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants—
2 it will be the same
for priest as for people,
for the master as for his servant,
for the mistress as for her servant,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.
3 The earth will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The Lord has spoken this word.
4 The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers,
the heavens languish with the earth.
5 The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,
and very few are left.
7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers;
all the merrymakers groan.
8 The joyful timbrels are stilled,
the noise of the revelers has stopped,
the joyful harp is silent.
9 No longer do they drink wine with a song;
the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The ruined city lies desolate;
the entrance to every house is barred.
11 In the streets they cry out for wine;
all joy turns to gloom,
all joyful sounds are banished from the earth.
12 The city is left in ruins,
its gate is battered to pieces.
13 So will it be on the earth
and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
14 They raise their voices, they shout for joy;
from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.
15 Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;
exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,
in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing:
“Glory to the Righteous One.”
But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!
Woe to me!
The treacherous betray!
With treachery the treacherous betray!”
17 Terror and pit and snare await you,
people of the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror
will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit
will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened,
the foundations of the earth shake.
19 The earth is broken up,
the earth is split asunder,
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth reels like a drunkard,
it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion
that it falls—never to rise again.
21 In that day the Lord will punish
the powers in the heavens above
and the kings on the earth below.
22 They will be herded together
like prisoners bound in a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison
and be punished[d] after many days.
23 The moon will be dismayed,
the sun ashamed;
for the Lord Almighty will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before its elders—with great glory.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Read: Psalm 100
A Thanksgiving Psalm
On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn’t make him.
We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 100 is poetry packed with image-rich language. When the psalmist says we are the Lord’s, this reminds us of His creative and redeeming work. The Bible tells us that if we have faith in Christ, we are His in at least two ways: We are His because He created us (Gen. 1:26–31) and because He has adopted us as His family (Eph. 1:5). The psalmist also uses the image of a sheep. We are “the sheep of His pasture.” We belong to Him and can enter His gates because we are under His care. Jesus Himself uses this image of sheep and gates in John 10:7–9 when explaining what it means to be saved.
The Gates of Worship
By Marvin Williams
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4
When you enter some of the greatest cities in the world, you can encounter famous gates such as the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), the Jaffa Gate (Jerusalem), and the gates at Downing Street (London). Whether the gates were built for defensive or ceremonial purposes, they all represent the difference between being outside or inside certain areas of the city. Some are open; some are closed to all but a few.
The gates into the presence of God are always open. The familiar song of Psalm 100 is an invitation for the Israelites to enter into the presence of God through the temple gates. They were told to “shout for joy” and “come before him with joyful songs” (vv. 1–2). Shouting for joy was an appropriate expression when greeting a monarch in the ancient world. All the earth was to sing joyfully about God! The reason for this joyful noise was that God had given them their identity (v. 3). They entered the gates with praise and thanksgiving because of God’s goodness and His steadfast and enduring love which continues through all generations (vv. 4–5). Even when they forgot their identity and wandered away from Him, God remained faithful and still invited them to enter His presence.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
What should motivate us to worship God? What statement of praise could you give to God today?
The gates into the presence of God are always open.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 22, 2016
The Missionary’s Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am ….I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master… —John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less— “…for One is your Teacher, the Christ…” (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord…”— but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it— a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 22, 2016
No Time to Pray, No Hope If I Don't - #7749
Kasey pretty much blew high school. He was on our ministry team and he was a walking miracle. The pain of his childhood set him up to make some lousy choices, like drugs for example. He quit high school. He was headed for a wasted life or an early death until he met Jesus at the age of 19. He left all the junk of his past behind him and started a passionate study of God's Word, like memorizing hundreds of verses! Kasey wanted to get college training, but he knew that meant taking the GED test to get a Graduation Equivalency Diploma. He had pretty much failed math, he failed English and all the subjects he was about to be tested on. They were timed tests, something like 25-50 minutes. But at the beginning of each test, he bowed his head and prayed for about 10 minutes. The teacher administering the test walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, but I think you're going to need all the time. It's challenging to get it done with all the minutes you've got. You've got no time to pray." Kasey's answer? "There's no hope if I don't."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Time to Pray, No Hope if I Don't."
Would you like to know how the praying test-taker did? Stay tuned. First, our word for today from the Word of God, Ephesians 6:18. It comes at the end of God's description of how to win your spiritual battles. This is the capstone verse, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Even when the pressure is really on? Even when you don't have time to pray? Especially when you don't have time!
In spite of the fact that my friend had failed most of the subjects he was now being tested on, he didn't miss a single math question! And he only missed two questions in all his English testing! He totally aced those tests, finishing every one in time with 10 minutes of praying taken out of his time!
I want you to remember that picture. It's a living example of a truth that we desperately need to live on. Time spent in prayer is not time wasted, it is not time lost, it is time, believe it or not, that will save time and effort. It's time that can make things go much more smoothly and quickly than if you hadn't taken time with God about them.
God has made it clear that He wants to keep hearing from us, no matter what the squeeze we're in. In Luke 18:1, Jesus showed His disciples that "they should always pray and not give up." In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, God tells us to "pray continually". Not just in spiritual binges – continually!
The reason it's so hard for us to pray when things are really tight is because of where our trust really is. We say it's in God, but in reality we're really trusting in our work to get it done, our effort, our meetings, our persuasion, our planning. "You know, if I just work a little harder, if I make a better plan, if I convince a few more people," that's where our real faith is. And you can tell by the proportion of our time we put into our effort compared with the proportion of time we put into bringing it to our Heavenly Father.
Things happen when you pray that can make the job so much easier. As you linger in God's presence, you get breakthrough insights into people or situations, people you've been trying to change start changing, hard hearts get softened, resources get released and immovable obstacles start moving because you have made prayer your #1 method of getting things done. Did you get that? Prayer – your Number One method of getting it done.
There are miracles waiting for you if you will pay the price of praying when you feel like there's just no time for it. You may think there's no time to pray, when, in fact, there's no hope if you don't.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Isaiah 23 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: BEHIND BARS
In 1965 Howard Rutledge parachuted into North Vietnam and spent the next several years in a prison in Hanoi, locked in a filthy cell breathing stale, rotten air trying to keep his sanity. Few of us will ever face the conditions of a POW camp.
Yet, to one degree or another, we all spend time behind bars. After half-a-century of marriage, my friend’s wife began to lose her memory. A young mother recently called who had just been diagnosed with Lupus. Why would God permit such imprisonment? To what purpose? Jeremiah 30:24 promises, “The Lord will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intents of His mind.” This season in which you find yourself may puzzle you, but it doesn’t bewilder God. He will use it for His purpose. Let me remind you… you will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 23
It Was All Numbers, Dead Numbers, Profit and Loss
Wail, ships of Tarshish,
your strong seaports all in ruins!
When the ships returned from Cyprus,
they saw the destruction.
Hold your tongue, you who live on the seacoast,
merchants of Sidon.
Your people sailed the deep seas,
buying and selling,
Making money on wheat from Shihor,
grown along the Nile—
multinational broker in grains!
Hang your head in shame, Sidon. The Sea speaks up,
the powerhouse of the ocean says,
“I’ve never had labor pains, never had a baby,
never reared children to adulthood,
Never gave life, never worked with life.
It was all numbers, dead numbers, profit and loss.”
5 When Egypt gets the report on Tyre,
what wailing! what wringing of hands!
Nothing Left Here to Be Proud Of
6-12 Visit Tarshish, you who live on the seacoast.
Take a good, long look and wail—yes, cry buckets of tears!
Is this the city you remember as energetic and alive,
bustling with activity, this historic old city,
Expanding throughout the globe,
buying and selling all over the world?
And who is behind the collapse of Tyre,
the Tyre that controlled the world markets?
Tyre’s merchants were the business tycoons.
Tyre’s traders called all the shots.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies ordered the crash
to show the sordid backside of pride
and puncture the inflated reputations.
Sail for home, O ships of Tarshish.
There are no docks left in this harbor.
God reached out to the sea and sea traders,
threw the sea kingdoms into turmoil.
God ordered the destruction
of the seacoast cities, the centers of commerce.
God said, “There’s nothing left here to be proud of,
bankrupt and bereft Sidon.
Do you want to make a new start in Cyprus?
Don’t count on it. Nothing there will work out for you either.”
13 Look at what happened to Babylon: There’s nothing left of it. Assyria turned it into a desert, into a refuge for wild dogs and stray cats. They brought in their big siege engines, tore down the buildings, and left nothing behind but rubble.
14 Wail, ships of Tarshish,
your strong seaports all in ruins!
15-16 For the next seventy years, a king’s lifetime, Tyre will be forgotten. At the end of the seventy years, Tyre will stage a comeback, but it will be the comeback of a worn-out whore, as in the song:
“Take a harp, circle the city,
unremembered whore.
Sing your old songs, your many old songs.
Maybe someone will remember.”
17-18 At the end of the seventy years, God will look in on Tyre. She’ll go back to her old whoring trade, selling herself to the highest bidder, doing anything with anyone—promiscuous with all the kingdoms of earth—for a fee. But everything she gets, all the money she takes in, will be turned over to God. It will not be put in banks. Her profits will be put to the use of God-Aware, God-Serving-People, providing plenty of food and the best of clothing.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Read: James 1:2–12
Faith Under Pressure
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
5-8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
9-11 When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
INSIGHT:
James, the half-brother of Jesus, believed that Christ was the Messiah after witnessing His resurrection from the dead. James led the early church as a “Messianic Jew,” a term referring to someone who has been reared in the traditions of Judaism and who acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah. In today’s reading, James says that a positive attitude toward trials—“consider it pure joy . . . whenever you face trials of many kinds” (1:2)—is central to the Christian life. Trials are beneficial because they produce positive character change through the power of God.
Fiery Trials
By Bill Crowder
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. James 1:2
Fire can be one of the worst enemies of trees. But it can also be helpful. Experts say that small, frequent fires called “cool” fires clean the forest floor of dead leaves and branches but don’t destroy the trees. They leave behind ashes, which are perfect for seeds to grow in. Surprisingly, low-intensity fires are necessary for healthy growth of trees.
Similarly, trials—pictured as fire in the Bible—are necessary for our spiritual health and growth (1 Peter 1:7; 4:12). James wrote, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4).
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. James 1:2
It is in the season of trial that God’s purposes are often realized, for there the conditions are right for us to grow into spiritual maturity. This growth not only equips us for living, but it also enables us to more accurately reflect Jesus to a world that desperately needs Him.
In the hands of our Father, our trials can achieve His purposes for our good and for His honor. They can shape us into the likeness of His Son.
Father, teach me to trust You for the strength to endure difficulties and the faith to wait for Your good purposes to be accomplished in me.
Encourage others! Go to odb.org and share what God taught you through a challenging time.
Faith is seeing God in the dark and in the light.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Missionary’s Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant… —Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances— we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in John 3:16— “For God so loved the world….”
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When a man’s heart is right with God the mysterious utterances of the Bible are spirit and life to him. Spiritual truth is discernible only to a pure heart, not to a keen intellect. It is not a question of profundity of intellect, but of purity of heart. Bringing Sons Unto Glory, 231 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Legacy of Your Life - #7748
The Kentucky Derby always has its share of drama. The 2006 Kentucky Derby was a blowout. A horse named Barbaro took the lead in America's most famous race and left every other horse in the dust. Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby by an astounding 6 ½ lengths! Many thought that horse could go on to be one of the few who has ever won the Triple Crown. Well, sadly, an injury ended that dream. But it didn't take away the glory of Barbaro's dramatic Kentucky Derby victory.
The horse was only part of the story that day. In some ways, the bigger story was that of Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz. Eighteen years earlier, Michael Matz had been a passenger on an airplane flight that crashed in an Iowa cornfield. During the flight, he had struck up conversations with three young children who were traveling that day without their parents. Then came the crash. Many died that day as the plane caught fire. Survivors were struggling to find a way out of that burning wreckage, but all Michael Matz could think about was those three children. He risked his life to find all of them and bring them out alive. And on that day, when the horse Michael trained crossed that finish line, there was jubilant celebrating in the box where he was watching. Michael Matz, his wife, and the three (now grownup) children whose lives he had saved eighteen years before. Wow!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Legacy of Your Life."
In our word for today from the Word of God, Paul is thinking ahead to the day when his race will be over; when he'll be in heaven celebrating the lasting legacy of his life. In 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, speaking to people he had introduced to Jesus Christ, Paul says: "What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy."
Crossing the finish line to heaven—celebrating being there. First with Jesus, whose death and resurrection got you there, and then, with all those who are there (at least in part) because you helped to rescue them. You did what your Bible said to do: "Snatch others from the fire and save them" (Jude 23). You weren't content to just get you out of that burning wreckage of sin. No, you had to help those around you make it, too. That's going to make heaven even sweeter. Or is it?
As you look at the legacy of your life so far, do you see many people you've pointed to Jesus? Can you see some folks who will be in heaven because you were part of helping them go there? How many people understand what Jesus did on the cross for them because you explained it to them? Have you been to some funerals, and looked into the casket and asked yourself, "Why didn't I tell them about Jesus while there was still time?"
You can't have any of those days back. But you do have whatever days God still has ahead for you. And you can decide what kind of difference you want to make with the rest of your life. I hope it's to help as many people be in heaven with you as possible; to give as many people a chance at being rescued by Jesus as you can. Much of what we do and accomplish here won't mean anything, even one moment after our last breath. But there's one thing you can do that will last forever, and that is to help someone else live forever by showing them Jesus.
The prophet Daniel described that day when "multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Every person you know is headed for one of those two destinations.
Then he describes ultimate legacy: "Those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:2-3). Why? Because they'll be celebrating forever with people whose lives they rescued.
In 1965 Howard Rutledge parachuted into North Vietnam and spent the next several years in a prison in Hanoi, locked in a filthy cell breathing stale, rotten air trying to keep his sanity. Few of us will ever face the conditions of a POW camp.
Yet, to one degree or another, we all spend time behind bars. After half-a-century of marriage, my friend’s wife began to lose her memory. A young mother recently called who had just been diagnosed with Lupus. Why would God permit such imprisonment? To what purpose? Jeremiah 30:24 promises, “The Lord will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intents of His mind.” This season in which you find yourself may puzzle you, but it doesn’t bewilder God. He will use it for His purpose. Let me remind you… you will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 23
It Was All Numbers, Dead Numbers, Profit and Loss
Wail, ships of Tarshish,
your strong seaports all in ruins!
When the ships returned from Cyprus,
they saw the destruction.
Hold your tongue, you who live on the seacoast,
merchants of Sidon.
Your people sailed the deep seas,
buying and selling,
Making money on wheat from Shihor,
grown along the Nile—
multinational broker in grains!
Hang your head in shame, Sidon. The Sea speaks up,
the powerhouse of the ocean says,
“I’ve never had labor pains, never had a baby,
never reared children to adulthood,
Never gave life, never worked with life.
It was all numbers, dead numbers, profit and loss.”
5 When Egypt gets the report on Tyre,
what wailing! what wringing of hands!
Nothing Left Here to Be Proud Of
6-12 Visit Tarshish, you who live on the seacoast.
Take a good, long look and wail—yes, cry buckets of tears!
Is this the city you remember as energetic and alive,
bustling with activity, this historic old city,
Expanding throughout the globe,
buying and selling all over the world?
And who is behind the collapse of Tyre,
the Tyre that controlled the world markets?
Tyre’s merchants were the business tycoons.
Tyre’s traders called all the shots.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies ordered the crash
to show the sordid backside of pride
and puncture the inflated reputations.
Sail for home, O ships of Tarshish.
There are no docks left in this harbor.
God reached out to the sea and sea traders,
threw the sea kingdoms into turmoil.
God ordered the destruction
of the seacoast cities, the centers of commerce.
God said, “There’s nothing left here to be proud of,
bankrupt and bereft Sidon.
Do you want to make a new start in Cyprus?
Don’t count on it. Nothing there will work out for you either.”
13 Look at what happened to Babylon: There’s nothing left of it. Assyria turned it into a desert, into a refuge for wild dogs and stray cats. They brought in their big siege engines, tore down the buildings, and left nothing behind but rubble.
14 Wail, ships of Tarshish,
your strong seaports all in ruins!
15-16 For the next seventy years, a king’s lifetime, Tyre will be forgotten. At the end of the seventy years, Tyre will stage a comeback, but it will be the comeback of a worn-out whore, as in the song:
“Take a harp, circle the city,
unremembered whore.
Sing your old songs, your many old songs.
Maybe someone will remember.”
17-18 At the end of the seventy years, God will look in on Tyre. She’ll go back to her old whoring trade, selling herself to the highest bidder, doing anything with anyone—promiscuous with all the kingdoms of earth—for a fee. But everything she gets, all the money she takes in, will be turned over to God. It will not be put in banks. Her profits will be put to the use of God-Aware, God-Serving-People, providing plenty of food and the best of clothing.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Read: James 1:2–12
Faith Under Pressure
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
5-8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
9-11 When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
INSIGHT:
James, the half-brother of Jesus, believed that Christ was the Messiah after witnessing His resurrection from the dead. James led the early church as a “Messianic Jew,” a term referring to someone who has been reared in the traditions of Judaism and who acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah. In today’s reading, James says that a positive attitude toward trials—“consider it pure joy . . . whenever you face trials of many kinds” (1:2)—is central to the Christian life. Trials are beneficial because they produce positive character change through the power of God.
Fiery Trials
By Bill Crowder
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. James 1:2
Fire can be one of the worst enemies of trees. But it can also be helpful. Experts say that small, frequent fires called “cool” fires clean the forest floor of dead leaves and branches but don’t destroy the trees. They leave behind ashes, which are perfect for seeds to grow in. Surprisingly, low-intensity fires are necessary for healthy growth of trees.
Similarly, trials—pictured as fire in the Bible—are necessary for our spiritual health and growth (1 Peter 1:7; 4:12). James wrote, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4).
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. James 1:2
It is in the season of trial that God’s purposes are often realized, for there the conditions are right for us to grow into spiritual maturity. This growth not only equips us for living, but it also enables us to more accurately reflect Jesus to a world that desperately needs Him.
In the hands of our Father, our trials can achieve His purposes for our good and for His honor. They can shape us into the likeness of His Son.
Father, teach me to trust You for the strength to endure difficulties and the faith to wait for Your good purposes to be accomplished in me.
Encourage others! Go to odb.org and share what God taught you through a challenging time.
Faith is seeing God in the dark and in the light.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Missionary’s Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant… —Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances— we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in John 3:16— “For God so loved the world….”
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When a man’s heart is right with God the mysterious utterances of the Bible are spirit and life to him. Spiritual truth is discernible only to a pure heart, not to a keen intellect. It is not a question of profundity of intellect, but of purity of heart. Bringing Sons Unto Glory, 231 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Legacy of Your Life - #7748
The Kentucky Derby always has its share of drama. The 2006 Kentucky Derby was a blowout. A horse named Barbaro took the lead in America's most famous race and left every other horse in the dust. Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby by an astounding 6 ½ lengths! Many thought that horse could go on to be one of the few who has ever won the Triple Crown. Well, sadly, an injury ended that dream. But it didn't take away the glory of Barbaro's dramatic Kentucky Derby victory.
The horse was only part of the story that day. In some ways, the bigger story was that of Barbaro's trainer, Michael Matz. Eighteen years earlier, Michael Matz had been a passenger on an airplane flight that crashed in an Iowa cornfield. During the flight, he had struck up conversations with three young children who were traveling that day without their parents. Then came the crash. Many died that day as the plane caught fire. Survivors were struggling to find a way out of that burning wreckage, but all Michael Matz could think about was those three children. He risked his life to find all of them and bring them out alive. And on that day, when the horse Michael trained crossed that finish line, there was jubilant celebrating in the box where he was watching. Michael Matz, his wife, and the three (now grownup) children whose lives he had saved eighteen years before. Wow!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Legacy of Your Life."
In our word for today from the Word of God, Paul is thinking ahead to the day when his race will be over; when he'll be in heaven celebrating the lasting legacy of his life. In 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, speaking to people he had introduced to Jesus Christ, Paul says: "What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy."
Crossing the finish line to heaven—celebrating being there. First with Jesus, whose death and resurrection got you there, and then, with all those who are there (at least in part) because you helped to rescue them. You did what your Bible said to do: "Snatch others from the fire and save them" (Jude 23). You weren't content to just get you out of that burning wreckage of sin. No, you had to help those around you make it, too. That's going to make heaven even sweeter. Or is it?
As you look at the legacy of your life so far, do you see many people you've pointed to Jesus? Can you see some folks who will be in heaven because you were part of helping them go there? How many people understand what Jesus did on the cross for them because you explained it to them? Have you been to some funerals, and looked into the casket and asked yourself, "Why didn't I tell them about Jesus while there was still time?"
You can't have any of those days back. But you do have whatever days God still has ahead for you. And you can decide what kind of difference you want to make with the rest of your life. I hope it's to help as many people be in heaven with you as possible; to give as many people a chance at being rescued by Jesus as you can. Much of what we do and accomplish here won't mean anything, even one moment after our last breath. But there's one thing you can do that will last forever, and that is to help someone else live forever by showing them Jesus.
The prophet Daniel described that day when "multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Every person you know is headed for one of those two destinations.
Then he describes ultimate legacy: "Those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever" (Daniel 12:2-3). Why? Because they'll be celebrating forever with people whose lives they rescued.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Isaiah 22 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DO WHAT PLEASES GOD
Dad, would you intentionally break the arm of your child? Of course not. Such an action violates every fiber of your moral being. Yet if you engage in sexual activity outside your marriage, you’ll bring more pain into the life of your child than a broken bone.
Mom, would you force your children to sleep outside on a cold night? By no means. Yet if you involve yourself in an affair, you’ll bring more darkness and chill into the lives of your children than a hundred winters.
Actions have consequences. Make it your ‘rule of thumb’ to do what pleases God. Your classmates show you a way to cheat, the Internet provides pornography to watch. When these things happen, ask yourself the question: How can I please God? Psalm 4:5 says, “Do what is right as a sacrifice to the Lord.” You will never go wrong doing what is right!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 22
A Country of Cowards
A Message concerning the Valley of Vision:
What’s going on here anyway?
All this partying and noisemaking,
Shouting and cheering in the streets,
the city noisy with celebrations!
You have no brave soldiers to honor,
no combat heroes to be proud of.
Your leaders were all cowards,
captured without even lifting a sword,
A country of cowards
captured escaping the battle.
You Looked, but You Never Looked to Him
4-8 In the midst of the shouting, I said, “Let me alone.
Let me grieve by myself.
Don’t tell me it’s going to be all right.
These people are doomed. It’s not all right.”
For the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
is bringing a day noisy with mobs of people,
Jostling and stampeding in the Valley of Vision,
knocking down walls
and hollering to the mountains, “Attack! Attack!”
Old enemies Elam and Kir arrive armed to the teeth—
weapons and chariots and cavalry.
Your fine valleys are noisy with war,
chariots and cavalry charging this way and that.
God has left Judah exposed and defenseless.
8-11 You assessed your defenses that Day, inspected your arsenal of weapons in the Forest Armory. You found the weak places in the city walls that needed repair. You secured the water supply at the Lower Pool. You took an inventory of the houses in Jerusalem and tore down some to get bricks to fortify the city wall. You built a large cistern to ensure plenty of water.
You looked and looked and looked, but you never looked to him who gave you this city, never once consulted the One who has long had plans for this city.
12-13 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
called out on that Day,
Called for a day of repentant tears,
called you to dress in somber clothes of mourning.
But what do you do? You throw a party!
Eating and drinking and dancing in the streets!
You barbecue bulls and sheep, and throw a huge feast—
slabs of meat, kegs of beer.
“Seize the day! Eat and drink!
Tomorrow we die!”
14 God-of-the-Angel-Armies whispered to me his verdict on this frivolity: “You’ll pay for this outrage until the day you die.” The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says so.
The Key of the Davidic Heritage
15-19 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, spoke: “Come. Go to this steward, Shebna, who is in charge of all the king’s affairs, and tell him: What’s going on here? You’re an outsider here and yet you act like you own the place, make a big, fancy tomb for yourself where everyone can see it, making sure everyone will think you’re important. God is about to sack you, to throw you to the dogs. He’ll grab you by the hair, swing you round and round dizzyingly, and then let you go, sailing through the air like a ball, until you’re out of sight. Where you’ll land, nobody knows. And there you’ll die, and all the stuff you’ve collected heaped on your grave. You’ve disgraced your master’s house! You’re fired—and good riddance!
20-24 “On that Day I’ll replace Shebna. I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. I’ll dress him in your robe. I’ll put your belt on him. I’ll give him your authority. He’ll be a father-leader to Jerusalem and the government of Judah. I’ll give him the key of the Davidic heritage. He’ll have the run of the place—open any door and keep it open, lock any door and keep it locked. I’ll pound him like a nail into a solid wall. He’ll secure the Davidic tradition. Everything will hang on him—not only the fate of Davidic descendants but also the detailed daily operations of the house, including cups and cutlery.
25 “And then the Day will come,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies, “when that nail will come loose and fall out, break loose from that solid wall—and everything hanging on it will go with it.” That’s what will happen. God says so.
The Message (MSG)
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Read: Luke 24:13–32
The Road to Emmaus
That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.
17-18 He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”
19-24 He said, “What has happened?”
They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”
25-27 Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
28-31 They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.
32 Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
INSIGHT:
In today’s reading, Jesus came alongside two disciples traveling to Emmaus (v. 13). This appearance took place in the “nearly evening” of Sunday (vv. 29–30). The gospel writer Mark said, “Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them” (Mark 16:12). This was why they did not recognize Him until later (Luke 24:16, 31).
Connecting the Dots
By Mart DeHaan
Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24:27
In the 1880s French artist Georges Seurat introduced an art form known as pointillism. As the name suggests, Seurat used small dots of color, rather than brush strokes of blended pigments, to create an artistic image. Up close, his work looks like groupings of individual dots. Yet as the observer steps back, the human eye blends the dots into brightly colored portraits or landscapes.
The big picture of the Bible is similar. Up close, its complexity can leave us with the impression of dots on a canvas. As we read it, we might feel like Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. They couldn’t understand the tragic “dotlike” events of the Passover weekend. They had hoped that Jesus “was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21), but they had just witnessed His death.
The Bible shows a God who loves us more than we can imagine.
Suddenly a man they did not recognize was walking alongside them. After showing an interest in their conversation, He helped them connect the dots of the suffering and death of their long-awaited Messiah. Later, while eating a meal with them, Jesus let them recognize Him—and then He left as mysteriously as He came.
Was it the scarred dots of the nail wounds in His hands that caught their attention? We don’t know. What we do know is that when we connect the dots of Scripture and Jesus’s suffering (vv. 27, 44), we see a God who loves us more than we can imagine.
Jesus laid down His life to show His love for us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
The Divine Commandment of Life
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Breathing The Air Your Child Needs - #7747
If I'm ever on an airplane flight where the flight attendant becomes incapacitated, (And the thought of that is as close as I ever want to get.) I think I might be able to do the safety instructions. I mean, I've heard them so many times. Actually, you know, they've now video-ized the presentation. It used to be they just kind of got up and did it. I like the part where that little yellow oxygen mask drops down from above your seat in the demonstration. In the video, everyone is wonderfully calm in this simulated oxygen problem. I'm sure that's very true-to-life. "Oh, look, my oxygen mask just fell down. That's nice." Well, the video shows a mother putting the mask on herself, and then on her little girl. The instructions go like this: "If the cabin pressure drops, get the oxygen to your face first, and then to your child's."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Breathing The Air Your Child Needs."
When it's crunch time on an airplane flight, you have to first get for yourself the oxygen you need as a parent, then you can give your son or daughter what they need. In these increasingly challenging days for parents and dangerous days for our kids, we've got to breathe deeply what our children need so we can pass it on to them.
Over the years of youth and family work that I've been involved in, I have often been asked by a parent, "Can you help my son or daughter?" Often, the most helpful answer would be, "Can we get the oxygen to you before we try to get it to them?" How many times has our child's weakness been a mirror of our own, their failure a mirror of our failure, their baggage, their needs? It's kind of like my child, my mirror. I have to get me fixed before I can fix my son or daughter. And how in the world do we change things about ourselves that we haven't been able to change all these years?
Hope! Yes, in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:18 God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers with the precious blood of Christ." We have all gotten these destructive hand-me-down ways of living from our parents who probably got those same hurting ways from their parents, and so on and so on. And even though we may have been determined not to reproduce some of those traits, (We may have hated some of those things.) here they are popping up in our generation; marking another generation. Unless their hold can be stopped in your generation! Unless I can find the spiritual oxygen needed. If I can, then I can pass it on to my children.
We've all got ways of doing things we have long wanted to change, and for a long time: my temper, my negative attitude, my lack of discipline, my critical tongue, this addictive personality, this controlling personality, this lack of affection, this dishonesty. But God injects into our lifelong struggle to change, this hope-giving word: "redeemed." He says we were redeemed! We can be redeemed from it! But you can't help your child with that problem until you've breathed God's life-giving oxygen first. The bridge between the person you are and the person you need to be is spelled S-A-V-I-O-R.
We need a Savior. Christ shed His blood on a cross to pay for a lifetime of your sins and mine, and He breaks the power of sin to enslave any person who belongs to Him. And the Savior becomes your personal Savior when you tell Him you're giving yourself to Him.
Isn't it time you opened up to the One who died for you for your sake, for the sake of your precious child, for the sake of future generations? The greatest choice you could make for all of those people. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours."
Go to our website and there find exactly the information you need to begin your personal relationship with Jesus Christ – ANewStory.com. That's the website.
Jesus has redeeming grace for that son or daughter that you love so much. But first, you've got to breathe it yourself.
Dad, would you intentionally break the arm of your child? Of course not. Such an action violates every fiber of your moral being. Yet if you engage in sexual activity outside your marriage, you’ll bring more pain into the life of your child than a broken bone.
Mom, would you force your children to sleep outside on a cold night? By no means. Yet if you involve yourself in an affair, you’ll bring more darkness and chill into the lives of your children than a hundred winters.
Actions have consequences. Make it your ‘rule of thumb’ to do what pleases God. Your classmates show you a way to cheat, the Internet provides pornography to watch. When these things happen, ask yourself the question: How can I please God? Psalm 4:5 says, “Do what is right as a sacrifice to the Lord.” You will never go wrong doing what is right!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 22
A Country of Cowards
A Message concerning the Valley of Vision:
What’s going on here anyway?
All this partying and noisemaking,
Shouting and cheering in the streets,
the city noisy with celebrations!
You have no brave soldiers to honor,
no combat heroes to be proud of.
Your leaders were all cowards,
captured without even lifting a sword,
A country of cowards
captured escaping the battle.
You Looked, but You Never Looked to Him
4-8 In the midst of the shouting, I said, “Let me alone.
Let me grieve by myself.
Don’t tell me it’s going to be all right.
These people are doomed. It’s not all right.”
For the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
is bringing a day noisy with mobs of people,
Jostling and stampeding in the Valley of Vision,
knocking down walls
and hollering to the mountains, “Attack! Attack!”
Old enemies Elam and Kir arrive armed to the teeth—
weapons and chariots and cavalry.
Your fine valleys are noisy with war,
chariots and cavalry charging this way and that.
God has left Judah exposed and defenseless.
8-11 You assessed your defenses that Day, inspected your arsenal of weapons in the Forest Armory. You found the weak places in the city walls that needed repair. You secured the water supply at the Lower Pool. You took an inventory of the houses in Jerusalem and tore down some to get bricks to fortify the city wall. You built a large cistern to ensure plenty of water.
You looked and looked and looked, but you never looked to him who gave you this city, never once consulted the One who has long had plans for this city.
12-13 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
called out on that Day,
Called for a day of repentant tears,
called you to dress in somber clothes of mourning.
But what do you do? You throw a party!
Eating and drinking and dancing in the streets!
You barbecue bulls and sheep, and throw a huge feast—
slabs of meat, kegs of beer.
“Seize the day! Eat and drink!
Tomorrow we die!”
14 God-of-the-Angel-Armies whispered to me his verdict on this frivolity: “You’ll pay for this outrage until the day you die.” The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, says so.
The Key of the Davidic Heritage
15-19 The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, spoke: “Come. Go to this steward, Shebna, who is in charge of all the king’s affairs, and tell him: What’s going on here? You’re an outsider here and yet you act like you own the place, make a big, fancy tomb for yourself where everyone can see it, making sure everyone will think you’re important. God is about to sack you, to throw you to the dogs. He’ll grab you by the hair, swing you round and round dizzyingly, and then let you go, sailing through the air like a ball, until you’re out of sight. Where you’ll land, nobody knows. And there you’ll die, and all the stuff you’ve collected heaped on your grave. You’ve disgraced your master’s house! You’re fired—and good riddance!
20-24 “On that Day I’ll replace Shebna. I will call my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. I’ll dress him in your robe. I’ll put your belt on him. I’ll give him your authority. He’ll be a father-leader to Jerusalem and the government of Judah. I’ll give him the key of the Davidic heritage. He’ll have the run of the place—open any door and keep it open, lock any door and keep it locked. I’ll pound him like a nail into a solid wall. He’ll secure the Davidic tradition. Everything will hang on him—not only the fate of Davidic descendants but also the detailed daily operations of the house, including cups and cutlery.
25 “And then the Day will come,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies, “when that nail will come loose and fall out, break loose from that solid wall—and everything hanging on it will go with it.” That’s what will happen. God says so.
The Message (MSG)
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Read: Luke 24:13–32
The Road to Emmaus
That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.
17-18 He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”
19-24 He said, “What has happened?”
They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”
25-27 Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
28-31 They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.
32 Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
INSIGHT:
In today’s reading, Jesus came alongside two disciples traveling to Emmaus (v. 13). This appearance took place in the “nearly evening” of Sunday (vv. 29–30). The gospel writer Mark said, “Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them” (Mark 16:12). This was why they did not recognize Him until later (Luke 24:16, 31).
Connecting the Dots
By Mart DeHaan
Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24:27
In the 1880s French artist Georges Seurat introduced an art form known as pointillism. As the name suggests, Seurat used small dots of color, rather than brush strokes of blended pigments, to create an artistic image. Up close, his work looks like groupings of individual dots. Yet as the observer steps back, the human eye blends the dots into brightly colored portraits or landscapes.
The big picture of the Bible is similar. Up close, its complexity can leave us with the impression of dots on a canvas. As we read it, we might feel like Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. They couldn’t understand the tragic “dotlike” events of the Passover weekend. They had hoped that Jesus “was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21), but they had just witnessed His death.
The Bible shows a God who loves us more than we can imagine.
Suddenly a man they did not recognize was walking alongside them. After showing an interest in their conversation, He helped them connect the dots of the suffering and death of their long-awaited Messiah. Later, while eating a meal with them, Jesus let them recognize Him—and then He left as mysteriously as He came.
Was it the scarred dots of the nail wounds in His hands that caught their attention? We don’t know. What we do know is that when we connect the dots of Scripture and Jesus’s suffering (vv. 27, 44), we see a God who loves us more than we can imagine.
Jesus laid down His life to show His love for us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
The Divine Commandment of Life
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Breathing The Air Your Child Needs - #7747
If I'm ever on an airplane flight where the flight attendant becomes incapacitated, (And the thought of that is as close as I ever want to get.) I think I might be able to do the safety instructions. I mean, I've heard them so many times. Actually, you know, they've now video-ized the presentation. It used to be they just kind of got up and did it. I like the part where that little yellow oxygen mask drops down from above your seat in the demonstration. In the video, everyone is wonderfully calm in this simulated oxygen problem. I'm sure that's very true-to-life. "Oh, look, my oxygen mask just fell down. That's nice." Well, the video shows a mother putting the mask on herself, and then on her little girl. The instructions go like this: "If the cabin pressure drops, get the oxygen to your face first, and then to your child's."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Breathing The Air Your Child Needs."
When it's crunch time on an airplane flight, you have to first get for yourself the oxygen you need as a parent, then you can give your son or daughter what they need. In these increasingly challenging days for parents and dangerous days for our kids, we've got to breathe deeply what our children need so we can pass it on to them.
Over the years of youth and family work that I've been involved in, I have often been asked by a parent, "Can you help my son or daughter?" Often, the most helpful answer would be, "Can we get the oxygen to you before we try to get it to them?" How many times has our child's weakness been a mirror of our own, their failure a mirror of our failure, their baggage, their needs? It's kind of like my child, my mirror. I have to get me fixed before I can fix my son or daughter. And how in the world do we change things about ourselves that we haven't been able to change all these years?
Hope! Yes, in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:18 God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers with the precious blood of Christ." We have all gotten these destructive hand-me-down ways of living from our parents who probably got those same hurting ways from their parents, and so on and so on. And even though we may have been determined not to reproduce some of those traits, (We may have hated some of those things.) here they are popping up in our generation; marking another generation. Unless their hold can be stopped in your generation! Unless I can find the spiritual oxygen needed. If I can, then I can pass it on to my children.
We've all got ways of doing things we have long wanted to change, and for a long time: my temper, my negative attitude, my lack of discipline, my critical tongue, this addictive personality, this controlling personality, this lack of affection, this dishonesty. But God injects into our lifelong struggle to change, this hope-giving word: "redeemed." He says we were redeemed! We can be redeemed from it! But you can't help your child with that problem until you've breathed God's life-giving oxygen first. The bridge between the person you are and the person you need to be is spelled S-A-V-I-O-R.
We need a Savior. Christ shed His blood on a cross to pay for a lifetime of your sins and mine, and He breaks the power of sin to enslave any person who belongs to Him. And the Savior becomes your personal Savior when you tell Him you're giving yourself to Him.
Isn't it time you opened up to the One who died for you for your sake, for the sake of your precious child, for the sake of future generations? The greatest choice you could make for all of those people. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours."
Go to our website and there find exactly the information you need to begin your personal relationship with Jesus Christ – ANewStory.com. That's the website.
Jesus has redeeming grace for that son or daughter that you love so much. But first, you've got to breathe it yourself.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Isaiah 21, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily:DON’T FIX STUPID WITH STUPID
One may give into temptation with this thought, No one will know. I won’t get caught. I’m only human. . .
Don’t make matters worse by doing something you’ll regret. Years ago, a friend gave me this counsel: “Make a list of all the lives you would impact through your sexual immorality.” I did. Every so often I re-read it. Denalyn. My three daughters. My son-in-law. My yet-to-be-born grandchildren. Every person who’s ever read one of my books or heard my sermons. My publishing team. Our church staff. The list reminds me: one act of carnality is a poor exchange for a lifetime of lost legacy.
You don’t fix a struggling marriage with an affair, a drug problem with more drugs. You don’t fix stupid with stupid. Do what pleases God. Turbulent times will tempt you to forget Him. Shortcuts will lure you. Don’t be foolish and don’t be naïve. Do what pleases God. Nothing more, nothing less!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 21
The Betrayer Betrayed
A Message concerning the desert at the sea:
As tempests drive through the Negev Desert,
coming out of the desert, that terror-filled place,
A hard vision is given me:
The betrayer betrayed, the plunderer plundered.
Attack, Elam!
Lay siege, Media!
Persians, attack!
Attack, Babylon!
I’ll put an end to
all the moaning and groaning.
Because of this news I’m doubled up in pain,
writhing in pain like a woman having a baby,
Baffled by what I hear,
undone by what I see.
Absolutely stunned,
horror-stricken,
I had hoped for a relaxed evening,
but it has turned into a nightmare.
5 The banquet is spread,
the guests reclining in luxurious ease,
Eating and drinking, having a good time,
and then, “To arms, princes! The fight is on!”
6-9 The Master told me, “Go, post a lookout.
Have him report whatever he spots.
When he sees horses and wagons in battle formation,
lines of donkeys and columns of camels,
Tell him to keep his ear to the ground,
note every whisper, every rumor.”
Just then, the lookout shouted,
“I’m at my post, Master,
Sticking to my post day after day
and all through the night!
I watched them come,
the horses and wagons in battle formation.
I heard them call out the war news in headlines:
‘Babylon fallen! Fallen!
And all its precious god-idols
smashed to pieces on the ground.’”
10 Dear Israel, you’ve been through a lot,
you’ve been put through the mill.
The good news I get from God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the God of Israel, I now pass on to you.
11-12 A Message concerning Edom:
A voice calls to me
from the Seir mountains in Edom,
“Night watchman! How long till daybreak?
How long will this night last?”
The night watchman calls back,
“Morning’s coming,
But for now it’s still night.
If you ask me again, I’ll give the same answer.”
13-15 A Message concerning Arabia:
You’ll have to camp out in the desert badlands,
you caravans of Dedanites.
Haul water to the thirsty,
greet fugitives with bread.
Show your desert hospitality,
you who live in Tema.
The desert’s swarming with refugees
escaping the horrors of war.
16-17 The Master told me, “Hang on. Within one year—I’ll sign a contract on it!—the arrogant brutality of Kedar, those hooligans of the desert, will be over, nothing much left of the Kedar toughs.” The God of Israel says so.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 19, 2016
Read: Philippians 4:4–9
Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!
6-7 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
INSIGHT:
Philippians is one of Paul’s prison letters (written while a prisoner). Professor Reggie Kidd makes this observation: “Paul’s emotional state was complex. On the one hand, he was suffering. But on the other hand, he made a conscious decision to focus on the good things rather than on the bad things. And this choice helped him endure the sufferings of prison as well as his mistreatment at the hands of other preachers (see Phil. 1:17–18). And Paul’s advice in Philippians 4:6–8 was consistent with this attitude. . . . Thinking optimistically, and fighting against anxiety and discouragement, is a means of calling upon God to guard our hearts and minds. And therefore, it is also a means of persevering.”
Worth the Calories?
By Poh Fang Chia
If anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8
I love egg roti prata, a popular pancake in my country of Singapore. So I was intrigued to read that a 125-pound (57 kg) person must run 5 miles (8 km) per hour for 30 minutes to burn 240 calories. That’s equivalent to only one egg roti prata.
Ever since I started working out in the gym, those numbers have taken on a new significance for me. I find myself asking: Is this food worth the calories?
The mind is formed by what it takes in. —Will Durant
While it is wise to watch our food consumption, it is even more important to watch our media consumption. Research shows that what we see can stay in our minds for a long time and influence our behavior. It has a “clingy effect,” sticking to us like that stubborn fat we find so hard to lose.
With the wide variety of media content surrounding us today, we need to be discerning consumers. That doesn’t mean we read only Christian literature or watch only faith-related movies, but we are careful about what we allow our eyes to see. We might ask ourselves: Is this worth my time?
In Philippians 4:8, the apostle Paul tells us in essence, “Feed your eyes and minds on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy.” This is a “diet” worthy of what Christ has done and is doing in us.
Are my viewing habits enhancing my life or are they drawing me away from things that really matter? Help me, Lord, to make wise choices.
The mind is formed by what it takes in. Will Durant
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 19, 2016
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 19, 2016
In the House, But Not in Our Hands - #7746
When our boys were little, did they work ahead on their homework? No! On their chores? Silly question. On their Christmas lists? Oh yeah! For some strange reason they were able to do some serious advance planning when it came to what they wanted for Christmas. I could expect their carefully prepared Christmas list by Thanksgiving at the latest. Their wishes would be listed in priority order, with what they called "the big one" circled and starred in big print at the top. They didn't want me to miss it. For our oldest son one year, it was this spaceship that was the toy of the year, the toy that parents fight over to get the last one in the toy store. You know? Well, I worked ahead that year. Right around Thanksgiving, I went out and bought that ship before toy wars began at the store. I tucked it away safely in my closet. Now my son reminded me of that thing over and over again during December, maybe nagged would be a more accurate verb. He kept on asking, and that was fine. Of course, I had granted his request as soon as he asked the first time. I just waited till the appropriate time to give it to him.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "In the House, But Not in Our Hands."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 11:23-24. And I'll tell you, these are powerful, revealing verses on how prayer works. Here's what Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.' Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Now, that's an interesting little twist in those verbs. "Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." You've got past tense; you've got future tense, which is it? That toy spaceship in the closet that Christmas helped me understand what God is saying to us about powerful praying. I granted my son's request right after he first asked. It might be that God may have done that with something you've been asking Him for. It's done, it's just not delivered. In fact, He wants you to keep trusting Him for it, keep reaching out to your Father with childlike faith, and continue to commit that thing to Him.
But He wants you to come to Him in faith, acting as if it will happen or, from the standpoint of heaven, as if it has already happened if it is the will of God. "Believing you have received it, and it will be yours."
If you're normal, you want your answer right now! My son wanted that gift right then, but I couldn't give him the gift I already had for Him before the right time. If I had given it to Him too soon, it would have ruined it. Often, the time that you want your answer is in the perfect ways of God, too soon. Just because you have to wait for it doesn't mean it isn't coming.
So you can be sure that God is working on what you've asked Him for. He went right to work on it when you began committing it to Him. Will you pray with that kind of confidence, that kind of boldness? And be patient waiting for His perfect time to deliver it within the boundaries of His perfect will for your life. He responds to faith. The Bible says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him." First John 5:14-15, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him."
If your Father wants you to have it, it may not be in your hands, but it's already in the closet. He loves to answer the children that He loves so much. Just the right day, that gift will be yours.
One may give into temptation with this thought, No one will know. I won’t get caught. I’m only human. . .
Don’t make matters worse by doing something you’ll regret. Years ago, a friend gave me this counsel: “Make a list of all the lives you would impact through your sexual immorality.” I did. Every so often I re-read it. Denalyn. My three daughters. My son-in-law. My yet-to-be-born grandchildren. Every person who’s ever read one of my books or heard my sermons. My publishing team. Our church staff. The list reminds me: one act of carnality is a poor exchange for a lifetime of lost legacy.
You don’t fix a struggling marriage with an affair, a drug problem with more drugs. You don’t fix stupid with stupid. Do what pleases God. Turbulent times will tempt you to forget Him. Shortcuts will lure you. Don’t be foolish and don’t be naïve. Do what pleases God. Nothing more, nothing less!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 21
The Betrayer Betrayed
A Message concerning the desert at the sea:
As tempests drive through the Negev Desert,
coming out of the desert, that terror-filled place,
A hard vision is given me:
The betrayer betrayed, the plunderer plundered.
Attack, Elam!
Lay siege, Media!
Persians, attack!
Attack, Babylon!
I’ll put an end to
all the moaning and groaning.
Because of this news I’m doubled up in pain,
writhing in pain like a woman having a baby,
Baffled by what I hear,
undone by what I see.
Absolutely stunned,
horror-stricken,
I had hoped for a relaxed evening,
but it has turned into a nightmare.
5 The banquet is spread,
the guests reclining in luxurious ease,
Eating and drinking, having a good time,
and then, “To arms, princes! The fight is on!”
6-9 The Master told me, “Go, post a lookout.
Have him report whatever he spots.
When he sees horses and wagons in battle formation,
lines of donkeys and columns of camels,
Tell him to keep his ear to the ground,
note every whisper, every rumor.”
Just then, the lookout shouted,
“I’m at my post, Master,
Sticking to my post day after day
and all through the night!
I watched them come,
the horses and wagons in battle formation.
I heard them call out the war news in headlines:
‘Babylon fallen! Fallen!
And all its precious god-idols
smashed to pieces on the ground.’”
10 Dear Israel, you’ve been through a lot,
you’ve been put through the mill.
The good news I get from God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the God of Israel, I now pass on to you.
11-12 A Message concerning Edom:
A voice calls to me
from the Seir mountains in Edom,
“Night watchman! How long till daybreak?
How long will this night last?”
The night watchman calls back,
“Morning’s coming,
But for now it’s still night.
If you ask me again, I’ll give the same answer.”
13-15 A Message concerning Arabia:
You’ll have to camp out in the desert badlands,
you caravans of Dedanites.
Haul water to the thirsty,
greet fugitives with bread.
Show your desert hospitality,
you who live in Tema.
The desert’s swarming with refugees
escaping the horrors of war.
16-17 The Master told me, “Hang on. Within one year—I’ll sign a contract on it!—the arrogant brutality of Kedar, those hooligans of the desert, will be over, nothing much left of the Kedar toughs.” The God of Israel says so.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 19, 2016
Read: Philippians 4:4–9
Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!
6-7 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
8-9 Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.
INSIGHT:
Philippians is one of Paul’s prison letters (written while a prisoner). Professor Reggie Kidd makes this observation: “Paul’s emotional state was complex. On the one hand, he was suffering. But on the other hand, he made a conscious decision to focus on the good things rather than on the bad things. And this choice helped him endure the sufferings of prison as well as his mistreatment at the hands of other preachers (see Phil. 1:17–18). And Paul’s advice in Philippians 4:6–8 was consistent with this attitude. . . . Thinking optimistically, and fighting against anxiety and discouragement, is a means of calling upon God to guard our hearts and minds. And therefore, it is also a means of persevering.”
Worth the Calories?
By Poh Fang Chia
If anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8
I love egg roti prata, a popular pancake in my country of Singapore. So I was intrigued to read that a 125-pound (57 kg) person must run 5 miles (8 km) per hour for 30 minutes to burn 240 calories. That’s equivalent to only one egg roti prata.
Ever since I started working out in the gym, those numbers have taken on a new significance for me. I find myself asking: Is this food worth the calories?
The mind is formed by what it takes in. —Will Durant
While it is wise to watch our food consumption, it is even more important to watch our media consumption. Research shows that what we see can stay in our minds for a long time and influence our behavior. It has a “clingy effect,” sticking to us like that stubborn fat we find so hard to lose.
With the wide variety of media content surrounding us today, we need to be discerning consumers. That doesn’t mean we read only Christian literature or watch only faith-related movies, but we are careful about what we allow our eyes to see. We might ask ourselves: Is this worth my time?
In Philippians 4:8, the apostle Paul tells us in essence, “Feed your eyes and minds on things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous and praiseworthy.” This is a “diet” worthy of what Christ has done and is doing in us.
Are my viewing habits enhancing my life or are they drawing me away from things that really matter? Help me, Lord, to make wise choices.
The mind is formed by what it takes in. Will Durant
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 19, 2016
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 19, 2016
In the House, But Not in Our Hands - #7746
When our boys were little, did they work ahead on their homework? No! On their chores? Silly question. On their Christmas lists? Oh yeah! For some strange reason they were able to do some serious advance planning when it came to what they wanted for Christmas. I could expect their carefully prepared Christmas list by Thanksgiving at the latest. Their wishes would be listed in priority order, with what they called "the big one" circled and starred in big print at the top. They didn't want me to miss it. For our oldest son one year, it was this spaceship that was the toy of the year, the toy that parents fight over to get the last one in the toy store. You know? Well, I worked ahead that year. Right around Thanksgiving, I went out and bought that ship before toy wars began at the store. I tucked it away safely in my closet. Now my son reminded me of that thing over and over again during December, maybe nagged would be a more accurate verb. He kept on asking, and that was fine. Of course, I had granted his request as soon as he asked the first time. I just waited till the appropriate time to give it to him.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "In the House, But Not in Our Hands."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 11:23-24. And I'll tell you, these are powerful, revealing verses on how prayer works. Here's what Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.' Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Now, that's an interesting little twist in those verbs. "Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." You've got past tense; you've got future tense, which is it? That toy spaceship in the closet that Christmas helped me understand what God is saying to us about powerful praying. I granted my son's request right after he first asked. It might be that God may have done that with something you've been asking Him for. It's done, it's just not delivered. In fact, He wants you to keep trusting Him for it, keep reaching out to your Father with childlike faith, and continue to commit that thing to Him.
But He wants you to come to Him in faith, acting as if it will happen or, from the standpoint of heaven, as if it has already happened if it is the will of God. "Believing you have received it, and it will be yours."
If you're normal, you want your answer right now! My son wanted that gift right then, but I couldn't give him the gift I already had for Him before the right time. If I had given it to Him too soon, it would have ruined it. Often, the time that you want your answer is in the perfect ways of God, too soon. Just because you have to wait for it doesn't mean it isn't coming.
So you can be sure that God is working on what you've asked Him for. He went right to work on it when you began committing it to Him. Will you pray with that kind of confidence, that kind of boldness? And be patient waiting for His perfect time to deliver it within the boundaries of His perfect will for your life. He responds to faith. The Bible says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him." First John 5:14-15, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of Him."
If your Father wants you to have it, it may not be in your hands, but it's already in the closet. He loves to answer the children that He loves so much. Just the right day, that gift will be yours.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Isaiah 20 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A Deposit of Power
This may be the best-kept secret in Christendom. Conversion is more than a removal of sin. It's a deposit of power! When you were born into Christ, you were placed in God's royal family. John 1:12 says, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God." You have access to all the family blessings.
Surprised? You ain't heard nothin' yet! Paul described the value of your portfolio. "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17).
Whatever He has-we have! We were made for more than the wilderness. God saved you from Egypt so that He could bless you in the Promised Land. The gift has been given. Will you trust it? Don't measure your life by your ability; measure it by God's!
Visit GloryDaysToday.com to learn more.
Isaiah 20
Exposed to Mockery and Jeers
In the year the field commander, sent by King Sargon of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought and took it, God told Isaiah son of Amoz, “Go, take off your clothes and sandals,” and Isaiah did it, going about naked and barefooted.
3-6 Then God said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked around town naked and barefooted for three years as a warning sign to Egypt and Ethiopia, so the king of Assyria is going to come and take the Egyptians as captives and the Ethiopians as exiles. He’ll take young and old alike and march them out of there naked and barefooted, exposed to mockery and jeers—the bared buttocks of Egypt on parade! Everyone who has put hope in Ethiopia and expected help from Egypt will be thrown into confusion. Everyone who lives along this coast will say, ‘Look at them! Naked and barefooted, shuffling off to exile! And we thought they were our best hope, that they’d rescue us from the king of Assyria. Now what’s going to happen to us? How are we going to get out of this?’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Read: John 14:1–6
The Road
“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
INSIGHT:
Preparation was an important theme in Jesus’s final teaching time with His followers. His “upper room discourse” opens with the promise of a place in the Father’s house (John 14:2), where Jesus would go and prepare a place for His followers. The imagery of a prepared place in the house of the Lord was not new. This same idea brought comfort to David, who sang, “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6). As it was with David, Jesus’s disciples had this hope. And so do we! He promised to return for His own and take us to the place He has prepared.
Making Preparations
By Cindy Hess Kasper
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:3
As we viewed my father-in-law’s body in his casket at the funeral home, one of his sons took his dad’s hammer and tucked it alongside his folded hands. Years later, when my mother-in-law died, one of the children slipped a set of knitting needles under her fingers. Those sweet gestures brought comfort to us as we remembered how often they had used those tools during their lives.
Of course, we knew that they wouldn’t actually need those items in eternity. We had no illusions, as the ancient Egyptians did, that tools or money or weapons buried with someone would better prepare them for the next life. You can’t take it with you! (Ps. 49:16–17; 1 Tim. 6:7).
Each of us must prepare our heart by accepting the gift of salvation.
But some preparation for eternity had been necessary for my in-laws. That preparation had come years before when they trusted Jesus as their Savior.
Planning for the life to come can’t begin at the time of our death. Each of us prepares our heart by accepting the gift of salvation made possible by Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.
At the same time, God has made preparations as well: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3). He has promised to prepare a place for us to spend eternity with Him.
Father, we're grateful that we will have a place with You one day. Thank You that you will fill us with joy in Your presence.
God gives us time—to prepare for eternity.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 18, 2016
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things— he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
This may be the best-kept secret in Christendom. Conversion is more than a removal of sin. It's a deposit of power! When you were born into Christ, you were placed in God's royal family. John 1:12 says, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God." You have access to all the family blessings.
Surprised? You ain't heard nothin' yet! Paul described the value of your portfolio. "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17).
Whatever He has-we have! We were made for more than the wilderness. God saved you from Egypt so that He could bless you in the Promised Land. The gift has been given. Will you trust it? Don't measure your life by your ability; measure it by God's!
Visit GloryDaysToday.com to learn more.
Isaiah 20
Exposed to Mockery and Jeers
In the year the field commander, sent by King Sargon of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought and took it, God told Isaiah son of Amoz, “Go, take off your clothes and sandals,” and Isaiah did it, going about naked and barefooted.
3-6 Then God said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked around town naked and barefooted for three years as a warning sign to Egypt and Ethiopia, so the king of Assyria is going to come and take the Egyptians as captives and the Ethiopians as exiles. He’ll take young and old alike and march them out of there naked and barefooted, exposed to mockery and jeers—the bared buttocks of Egypt on parade! Everyone who has put hope in Ethiopia and expected help from Egypt will be thrown into confusion. Everyone who lives along this coast will say, ‘Look at them! Naked and barefooted, shuffling off to exile! And we thought they were our best hope, that they’d rescue us from the king of Assyria. Now what’s going to happen to us? How are we going to get out of this?’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Read: John 14:1–6
The Road
“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
INSIGHT:
Preparation was an important theme in Jesus’s final teaching time with His followers. His “upper room discourse” opens with the promise of a place in the Father’s house (John 14:2), where Jesus would go and prepare a place for His followers. The imagery of a prepared place in the house of the Lord was not new. This same idea brought comfort to David, who sang, “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Ps. 23:6). As it was with David, Jesus’s disciples had this hope. And so do we! He promised to return for His own and take us to the place He has prepared.
Making Preparations
By Cindy Hess Kasper
If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. John 14:3
As we viewed my father-in-law’s body in his casket at the funeral home, one of his sons took his dad’s hammer and tucked it alongside his folded hands. Years later, when my mother-in-law died, one of the children slipped a set of knitting needles under her fingers. Those sweet gestures brought comfort to us as we remembered how often they had used those tools during their lives.
Of course, we knew that they wouldn’t actually need those items in eternity. We had no illusions, as the ancient Egyptians did, that tools or money or weapons buried with someone would better prepare them for the next life. You can’t take it with you! (Ps. 49:16–17; 1 Tim. 6:7).
Each of us must prepare our heart by accepting the gift of salvation.
But some preparation for eternity had been necessary for my in-laws. That preparation had come years before when they trusted Jesus as their Savior.
Planning for the life to come can’t begin at the time of our death. Each of us prepares our heart by accepting the gift of salvation made possible by Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.
At the same time, God has made preparations as well: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3). He has promised to prepare a place for us to spend eternity with Him.
Father, we're grateful that we will have a place with You one day. Thank You that you will fill us with joy in Your presence.
God gives us time—to prepare for eternity.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 18, 2016
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things— he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
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