Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS NEVER SURPRISED
Most people suffer from small thoughts about God. In an effort to see him as our friend, we have lost his immensity. In our desire to understand him, we have sought to contain him. The God of the Bible cannot be contained. He brought order out of chaos and created creation. He consulted no committee. He sought no counsel. He said, “I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9 NIV).
The greatest kings have surrendered their crowns. The queen of England is called Her Majesty, yet she must eat and bathe and rest. The True Majesty is never hungry. He never sleeps. He has never needed assistance or attention. “He sustains everything by the mighty power of his command” (Hebrews 1:3 NLT). He has authority over the world—over your world! And he has never, ever uttered the phrase, “How did that happen?”
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 57
Never Tired of Trying New Religions
Meanwhile, right-living people die
and no one gives them a thought.
God-fearing people are carted off
and no one even notices.
The right-living people are out of their misery,
they’re finally at rest.
They lived well and with dignity
and now they’re finally at peace.
3-10 “But you, children of a witch, come here!
Sons of a slut, daughters of a whore.
What business do you have taunting,
sneering, and sticking out your tongue?
Do you have any idea what wretches you’ve turned out to be?
A race of rebels, a generation of liars.
You satisfy your lust any place you find some shade
and fornicate at whim.
You kill your children at any convenient spot—
any cave or crevasse will do.
You take stones from the creek
and set up your sex-and-religion shrines.
You’ve chosen your fate.
Your worship will be your doom.
You’ve climbed a high mountain
to practice your foul sex-and-death religion.
Behind closed doors
you assemble your precious gods and goddesses.
Deserting me, you’ve gone all out, stripped down
and made your bed your place of worship.
You’ve climbed into bed with the ‘sacred’ whores
and loved every minute of it,
adoring every curve of their naked bodies.
You anoint your king-god with ointments
and lavish perfumes on yourselves.
You send scouts to search out the latest in religion,
send them all the way to hell and back.
You wear yourselves out trying the new and the different,
and never see what a waste it all is.
You’ve always found strength for the latest fad,
never got tired of trying new religions.
11-13 “Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense,
leaving me high and dry,
forgetting you ever knew me?
Because I don’t yell and make a scene
do you think I don’t exist?
I’ll go over, detail by detail, all your ‘righteous’ attempts at religion,
and expose the absurdity of it all.
Go ahead, cry for help to your collection of no-gods:
A good wind will blow them away.
They’re smoke, nothing but smoke.
“But anyone who runs to me for help
will inherit the land,
will end up owning my holy mountain!”
14 Someone says: “Build, build! Make a road!
Clear the way, remove the rocks
from the road my people will travel.”
15-21 A Message from the high and towering God,
who lives in Eternity,
whose name is Holy:
“I live in the high and holy places,
but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed,
And what I do is put new spirit in them,
get them up and on their feet again.
For I’m not going to haul people into court endlessly,
I’m not going to be angry forever.
Otherwise, people would lose heart.
These souls I created would tire out and give up.
I was angry, good and angry, because of Israel’s sins.
I struck him hard and turned away in anger,
while he kept at his stubborn, willful ways.
When I looked again and saw what he was doing,
I decided to heal him, lead him, and comfort him,
creating a new language of praise for the mourners.
Peace to the far-off, peace to the near-at-hand,” says God—
“and yes, I will heal them.
But the wicked are storm-battered seas
that can’t quiet down.
The waves stir up garbage and mud.
There’s no peace,” God says, “for the wicked.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Read: Matthew 16:1–4
Some Bad Yeast
Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them. He told them, “You have a saying that goes, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’ You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can’t you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you’ll get is the Jonah sign.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
INSIGHT:
After the religious leaders’ ironic demand for a sign of Jesus’s identity (Matt. 16:1–4), Jesus takes His men north to Caesarea Philippi where He asks two questions. The first, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (v. 13) was a survey of the prevailing opinions held by the common people about His identity. The answers were complimentary, but all fell short of the truth. The second question, “Who do you say I am?” received Peter’s ringing response, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (vv. 15–16). With God’s help, Peter rightly assessed all the miraculous signs Jesus had done in their first eighteen months together and affirmed that Jesus was God in human flesh.
Signs and Feelings
By Tim Gustafson
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. Psalm 119:105
A young man I know has a habit of asking God for signs. That’s not necessarily bad, but his prayers tend to seek confirmation of his feelings. For instance, he’ll pray, “God, if You want me to do X, then You please do Y, and I’ll know it’s okay.”
This has created a dilemma. Because of the way he prays and the way he thinks God is answering, he feels that he should get back with his ex-girlfriend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she feels strongly that God doesn’t want that.
The best way to know God’s will is to say, “I will” to God.
The religious leaders of Jesus’s day demanded a sign from Him to prove the validity of His claims (Matt. 16:1). They weren’t seeking God’s guidance; they were challenging His divine authority. Jesus replied, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign” (v. 4). The Lord’s strong response wasn’t a blanket statement to prevent anyone from seeking God’s guidance. Rather, Jesus was accusing them of ignoring the clear prophecies in Scripture that indicated He was the Messiah.
God wants us to seek His guidance in prayer (James 1:5). He also gives us the guidance of the Spirit (John 14:26) and His Word (Ps. 119:105). He provides us with mentors and wise leaders. And He’s given us the example of Jesus Himself.
It’s wise to ask God for clear direction, but He may not always give it in ways that we expect or want. Perhaps the larger point of prayer is that we learn more about God’s nature and develop a relationship with our Father.
Lord, it is impossible for us to comprehend Your nature, and yet You welcome us to approach You in prayer. And so we seek Your guidance today and ask to know You in ways we haven’t seen before.
The best way to know God’s will is to say, “I will” to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Sacred Service
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ… —Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred “go-between.” He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker’s life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, “What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!” then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Safe in an Unsafe World - #7783
After watching the World Trade Center as part of my skyline for many years, it hit really hard that awful September 11th to see those towers come crashing down and thousands of lives with them. The day after the first attack on the Trade Center, which was back in 1993, I was greeted by a TV crew as I got off a flight from Newark. Of all things, they asked me as a New Yorker how I felt after that bombing. And I could only think of one word, "vulnerable." That was my answer.
Well, since the events of that September 11th, and the years since then, and all of the terrorism that has spread Iike a cancer, I think a lot of us are feeling more and more vulnerable all the time. Look, we've watched everyday people like us, doing things we do back on September 11th, passengers on a jetliner, folks at their jobs – suddenly wiped out en masse. We're uncertain about what a new kind of war might mean, where the danger might pop up next, and what's going to happen economically. And some of us are trying to help our children understand this crazy world that we don't even understand. We all feel vulnerable. It's as if some of our own sense of personal security and safety started to come crashing down with those towers.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Safe in an Unsafe World."
Even without the constantly disturbing events in the news, we all know the feeling of having things that we counted on suddenly crashing down – a person we love, our job, the collapse of a marriage, a bad report from the doctor. In times like these, we're hungry for something we can anchor to, for something to sustain us when the bad news is more than we can bear, for something that will make us feel really safe.
When our President addressed the nation on this generation's "day of infamy" that September 11th, he alluded to the one source of comfort and hope in moments like these. He quoted from that treasured 23rd Psalm in the Bible – actually, Psalm 23:4, our word for today from the Word of God. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me."
The Bible holds out to you and me a security that can keep you safe in life's deepest valleys – even the valley of the shadow of death. That security is a relationship. It's a person. "You are with me, Lord" the psalmist said. All our lives we've been looking for one "unloseable" love. And there really is one. It's the love of the One who made you, the One you will meet on the other side of your last heartbeat, the One whose love caused Him to literally lay down His life for you.
In our vulnerable moments, our moments that are more than you can handle alone, those moments when you've gone seeking God, maybe you've realized that there's something that is separating you from Him. The Bible says we're right. The Bible says, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2). But Jesus came to remove that wall between you and God – the only way it could be removed – by Jesus dying to pay the death penalty for you and for me, hijacking a life that God was supposed to run and we took it instead.
Either you have this life-saving relationship with Jesus or you don't. It all depends on whether there's been a time when you grabbed the outstretched hand of Jesus like a person trapped in the wreckage would grab the hand of his rescuer. If you are ready for the kind of security, the safety that only Jesus Christ can offer, if you're ready to begin this anchor relationship with the man who died for you, whose love you will never lose, would you tell Him that right where you are? "Jesus, you died for me. My life is yours from this day on."
I want you to know for sure that you have that anchor, that security from this day on. So I'd invite you to go where some information is that will really help that happen. It's our website ANewStory.com. I'd love for you to visit there as soon as you can today.
My prayer is that you'll be able to go to sleep tonight knowing you are in the safest place in the universe – the arms of Jesus Christ – and that you'll be able to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil – for You are with me."
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Isaiah 56 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LOOK UP!
God will come to you, my friend— through the word of a scripture or the kindness of a friend. Why, he may even speak to you through a moment like this one. But this much is certain: God comes to his people. Scripture says, “The Commander of the armies of heaven is here among us” (Psalm 46:7 TLB).
You are no exception to this promise! Are you experiencing a Jericho-level challenge? Do you face walls that are too high to breach and too thick to crack? A diagnosis, a difficulty, or a defeat that keeps you from knocking down the walls? If so, do what Joshua did. He lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him. (Joshua 5:13) When Joshua lifted his eyes, he saw Jesus. So, look up…look up! The Lord, your Help, is coming!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 56
Salvation Is Just Around the Corner
God’s Message:
“Guard my common good:
Do what’s right and do it in the right way,
For salvation is just around the corner,
my setting-things-right is about to go into action.
How blessed are you who enter into these things,
you men and women who embrace them,
Who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
who watch your step and don’t do anything evil!
Make sure no outsider who now follows God
ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class.
I don’t really belong.’
And make sure no physically mutilated person
is ever made to think, ‘I’m damaged goods.
I don’t really belong.’”
4-5 For God says:
“To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths
and choose what delights me
and keep a firm grip on my covenant,
I’ll provide them an honored place
in my family and within my city,
even more honored than that of sons and daughters.
I’ll confer permanent honors on them
that will never be revoked.
6-8 “And as for the outsiders who now follow me,
working for me, loving my name,
and wanting to be my servants—
All who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
holding fast to my covenant—
I’ll bring them to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
They’ll be welcome to worship the same as the ‘insiders,’
to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar.
Oh yes, my house of worship
will be known as a house of prayer for all people.”
The Decree of the Master, God himself,
who gathers in the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather others also,
gather them in with those already gathered.”
9-12 A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run.
Come, devour, beast barbarians!
For Israel’s watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them.
They have no idea what’s going on.
They’re dogs without sense enough to bark,
lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun—
But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat,
voracious dogs, with never enough.
And these are Israel’s shepherds!
They know nothing, understand nothing.
They all look after themselves,
grabbing whatever’s not nailed down.
“Come,” they say, “let’s have a party.
Let’s go out and get drunk!”
And tomorrow, more of the same:
“Let’s live it up!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Read: Galatians 6:2–10
Nothing but the Cross
Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
INSIGHT:
Paul told the church of Galatia that when they carried each other’s burdens they reflected and fulfilled the work of Christ. The Greek word translated “carry” in Galatians 6:2 appears thirteen times in the New Testament and means “to bear a heavy or burdensome object.” It is the same word used by the gospel writers in Matthew 8:17, Luke 14:27, and John 19:17. Matthew proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah who “bore our diseases.” Luke recounted Jesus telling His disciples that anyone who would not carry His cross could not be His disciple. And John described our Lord’s struggle as He carried His own cross to Calvary. Carrying one another’s burdens isn’t a kind gesture; it’s a mark of Christlikeness.
We Had No Idea
By Dave Branon
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Volunteers from a local church spent a frigid evening distributing food to people in a low-income apartment complex. One woman who received the food was overjoyed. She showed them her bare cupboard and told them they were an answer to her prayers.
As the volunteers returned to the church, one woman began to cry. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “that lady was my Sunday school teacher. She’s in church every Sunday. We had no idea she was almost starving!”
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Clearly, these were caring people who were seeking ways to carry the burdens of others, as Paul suggests in Galatians 6:2. Yet somehow they hadn’t noticed the needs of this woman—someone they saw every Sunday—and she hadn’t shared her needs. This can be a gentle reminder for all of us to be more aware of those around us and, as Paul said, to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (6:10).
People who worship together have the privilege of assisting one another so no one in the body of Christ goes without help. As we get to know each other and care for each other, perhaps we won’t ever have to say, “We had no idea.”
Dear Lord, help me to notice the needs of those around me and to do what I can to meet those needs in Your name.
Nothing costs as much as caring—except not caring.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. —Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
“He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. “…your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “…He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Recycling the Garbage of Your Life - #7782
Florida has many beautiful things about it – great beaches, great theme parks, and great weather. But to be perfectly honest, it's not one of the most exciting states just to drive across. I mean, it's like terminal flatness sort of. You know, like Illinois where I grew up. There's nothing wrong with the South Florida landscape that a nice mountain or a hill wouldn't help. Well, in West Palm Beach there is one. A hill, that is. It actually rises to the breathtaking height of 55' above sea level.
My assistant at the time had a sister in that area who loved to go hiking on and around that beautiful hill. It's wonderfully landscaped. There's some water there, some biking, hiking, jogging trails, and recreational areas. Now anyone who knows the topography of South Florida would wisely ask, "Where did this hill come from?" Garbage. Yep. This lovely spot used to be an ugly, old landfill. But someone had the brilliant idea of making something useful, something even beautiful out of what had just been a lot of garbage.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Recycling the Garbage of Your Life."
It's amazing how they, out of garbage, made something they could never have had otherwise. Actually, that's the kind of miracle God loves to do with some of the foulest experiences of our lives.
In our word for today from the Word of God beginning in Isaiah 61:1, we read this description of Jesus. "The Lord has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion." Now, Jesus comes to do something with the things in our life that, well, we would see only as trash – a broken heart, a physical or emotional prison, a season of darkness, things that make us mourn and grieve. But listen to the amazing beauty He can create from this ugly garbage.
He says He will "bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be (now, remember, the "they" here is broken, damaged, hurting people)...they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor." Out of the garbage, something glorious!
Now you may be looking at your pain and all you can see is a mountain of stinking, useless trash. But Jesus is looking at it like some engineers and landscapers must have looked at that landfill in Florida, seeing some beautiful things that He can make from it, things you could never have on the landscape of your life if it weren't for the garbage.
Your Savior wants to take the pain that could make you a bitter person and use it to make you a compassionate person. Because you know what hurt or slavery is like, you know how it feels and you have the credentials and you have the sensitivity to be one of God's wounded healers. Jesus wants to use these hard things that could make you move farther from Him to drive you deeper into His love and His power than you ever thought possible.
There's an intimacy and there's a power with God experienced by the hurting people that the whole people will never touch. Through his almost unbearable suffering, Job said this to God, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You" (Job 42:5). Jesus can use the pain to deeply bond you, not only to Him, but to other people if you'll reach out instead of going in. Some of life's closest relationships are forged in the furnace of suffering. And your Lord can use the things you have hated in your life to get people to listen to you. They'll consider your Savior because they heard about Him from someone who knows what it means to really, really need one.
Beauty from ashes, praise from despair, something very special from something very ugly. If you will let Jesus Christ be the Lord of your life's pile of garbage, He can make of it a mountain from which many will be able to see Him.
God will come to you, my friend— through the word of a scripture or the kindness of a friend. Why, he may even speak to you through a moment like this one. But this much is certain: God comes to his people. Scripture says, “The Commander of the armies of heaven is here among us” (Psalm 46:7 TLB).
You are no exception to this promise! Are you experiencing a Jericho-level challenge? Do you face walls that are too high to breach and too thick to crack? A diagnosis, a difficulty, or a defeat that keeps you from knocking down the walls? If so, do what Joshua did. He lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him. (Joshua 5:13) When Joshua lifted his eyes, he saw Jesus. So, look up…look up! The Lord, your Help, is coming!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 56
Salvation Is Just Around the Corner
God’s Message:
“Guard my common good:
Do what’s right and do it in the right way,
For salvation is just around the corner,
my setting-things-right is about to go into action.
How blessed are you who enter into these things,
you men and women who embrace them,
Who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
who watch your step and don’t do anything evil!
Make sure no outsider who now follows God
ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class.
I don’t really belong.’
And make sure no physically mutilated person
is ever made to think, ‘I’m damaged goods.
I don’t really belong.’”
4-5 For God says:
“To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths
and choose what delights me
and keep a firm grip on my covenant,
I’ll provide them an honored place
in my family and within my city,
even more honored than that of sons and daughters.
I’ll confer permanent honors on them
that will never be revoked.
6-8 “And as for the outsiders who now follow me,
working for me, loving my name,
and wanting to be my servants—
All who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
holding fast to my covenant—
I’ll bring them to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
They’ll be welcome to worship the same as the ‘insiders,’
to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar.
Oh yes, my house of worship
will be known as a house of prayer for all people.”
The Decree of the Master, God himself,
who gathers in the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather others also,
gather them in with those already gathered.”
9-12 A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run.
Come, devour, beast barbarians!
For Israel’s watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them.
They have no idea what’s going on.
They’re dogs without sense enough to bark,
lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun—
But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat,
voracious dogs, with never enough.
And these are Israel’s shepherds!
They know nothing, understand nothing.
They all look after themselves,
grabbing whatever’s not nailed down.
“Come,” they say, “let’s have a party.
Let’s go out and get drunk!”
And tomorrow, more of the same:
“Let’s live it up!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Read: Galatians 6:2–10
Nothing but the Cross
Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
INSIGHT:
Paul told the church of Galatia that when they carried each other’s burdens they reflected and fulfilled the work of Christ. The Greek word translated “carry” in Galatians 6:2 appears thirteen times in the New Testament and means “to bear a heavy or burdensome object.” It is the same word used by the gospel writers in Matthew 8:17, Luke 14:27, and John 19:17. Matthew proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah who “bore our diseases.” Luke recounted Jesus telling His disciples that anyone who would not carry His cross could not be His disciple. And John described our Lord’s struggle as He carried His own cross to Calvary. Carrying one another’s burdens isn’t a kind gesture; it’s a mark of Christlikeness.
We Had No Idea
By Dave Branon
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Volunteers from a local church spent a frigid evening distributing food to people in a low-income apartment complex. One woman who received the food was overjoyed. She showed them her bare cupboard and told them they were an answer to her prayers.
As the volunteers returned to the church, one woman began to cry. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “that lady was my Sunday school teacher. She’s in church every Sunday. We had no idea she was almost starving!”
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Clearly, these were caring people who were seeking ways to carry the burdens of others, as Paul suggests in Galatians 6:2. Yet somehow they hadn’t noticed the needs of this woman—someone they saw every Sunday—and she hadn’t shared her needs. This can be a gentle reminder for all of us to be more aware of those around us and, as Paul said, to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (6:10).
People who worship together have the privilege of assisting one another so no one in the body of Christ goes without help. As we get to know each other and care for each other, perhaps we won’t ever have to say, “We had no idea.”
Dear Lord, help me to notice the needs of those around me and to do what I can to meet those needs in Your name.
Nothing costs as much as caring—except not caring.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. —Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
“He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. “…your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “…He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Recycling the Garbage of Your Life - #7782
Florida has many beautiful things about it – great beaches, great theme parks, and great weather. But to be perfectly honest, it's not one of the most exciting states just to drive across. I mean, it's like terminal flatness sort of. You know, like Illinois where I grew up. There's nothing wrong with the South Florida landscape that a nice mountain or a hill wouldn't help. Well, in West Palm Beach there is one. A hill, that is. It actually rises to the breathtaking height of 55' above sea level.
My assistant at the time had a sister in that area who loved to go hiking on and around that beautiful hill. It's wonderfully landscaped. There's some water there, some biking, hiking, jogging trails, and recreational areas. Now anyone who knows the topography of South Florida would wisely ask, "Where did this hill come from?" Garbage. Yep. This lovely spot used to be an ugly, old landfill. But someone had the brilliant idea of making something useful, something even beautiful out of what had just been a lot of garbage.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Recycling the Garbage of Your Life."
It's amazing how they, out of garbage, made something they could never have had otherwise. Actually, that's the kind of miracle God loves to do with some of the foulest experiences of our lives.
In our word for today from the Word of God beginning in Isaiah 61:1, we read this description of Jesus. "The Lord has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion." Now, Jesus comes to do something with the things in our life that, well, we would see only as trash – a broken heart, a physical or emotional prison, a season of darkness, things that make us mourn and grieve. But listen to the amazing beauty He can create from this ugly garbage.
He says He will "bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be (now, remember, the "they" here is broken, damaged, hurting people)...they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor." Out of the garbage, something glorious!
Now you may be looking at your pain and all you can see is a mountain of stinking, useless trash. But Jesus is looking at it like some engineers and landscapers must have looked at that landfill in Florida, seeing some beautiful things that He can make from it, things you could never have on the landscape of your life if it weren't for the garbage.
Your Savior wants to take the pain that could make you a bitter person and use it to make you a compassionate person. Because you know what hurt or slavery is like, you know how it feels and you have the credentials and you have the sensitivity to be one of God's wounded healers. Jesus wants to use these hard things that could make you move farther from Him to drive you deeper into His love and His power than you ever thought possible.
There's an intimacy and there's a power with God experienced by the hurting people that the whole people will never touch. Through his almost unbearable suffering, Job said this to God, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You" (Job 42:5). Jesus can use the pain to deeply bond you, not only to Him, but to other people if you'll reach out instead of going in. Some of life's closest relationships are forged in the furnace of suffering. And your Lord can use the things you have hated in your life to get people to listen to you. They'll consider your Savior because they heard about Him from someone who knows what it means to really, really need one.
Beauty from ashes, praise from despair, something very special from something very ugly. If you will let Jesus Christ be the Lord of your life's pile of garbage, He can make of it a mountain from which many will be able to see Him.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Romans 11:1-18, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: EVERYTHING ANSWERS TO GOD
Why do we get sick? For the same reason we still sin! Jeremiah prayed, “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise” (Jeremiah 17:14 NIV).
This is a fallen world, and the kingdom is a coming kingdom. Sickness and sin stalk our planet. But neither sin nor sickness will have dominion over God’s people. Sin cannot condemn us and disease cannot destroy us. Guilt is defanged, and death has lost its sting. The very sin and sickness that Satan intends for evil, God redeems–He redeems it for good. Sin becomes a showcase of his grace. Sickness becomes a demonstration of God’s ability to heal. Every fiber, molecule, and brainwave answers to his command. God is in charge!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 11:1-18
The Loyal Minority
Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that! So we’re not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them.
2-6 Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer?
God, they murdered your prophets,
They trashed your altars;
I’m the only one left and now they’re after me!
And do you remember God’s answer?
I still have seven thousand who haven’t quit,
Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish.
It’s the same today. There’s a fiercely loyal minority still—not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They’re holding on, not because of what they think they’re going to get out of it, but because they’re convinced of God’s grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.
7-10 And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn’t succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The “self-interest Israel” became thick-skinned toward God. Moses and Isaiah both commented on this:
Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways,
God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears,
Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors,
and they’re there to this day.
David was upset about the same thing:
I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals,
break a leg walking their self-serving ways.
I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors,
get ulcers from playing at god.
Pruning and Grafting Branches
11-12 The next question is, “Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?” And the answer is a clear-cut No. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in. But the next thing you know, the Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing. Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!
13-15 But I don’t want to go on about them. It’s you, the outsiders, that I’m concerned with now. Because my personal assignment is focused on the so-called outsiders, I make as much of this as I can when I’m among my Israelite kin, the so-called insiders, hoping they’ll realize what they’re missing and want to get in on what God is doing. If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If the first thing the Jews did, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what’s going to happen when they get it right!
16-18 Behind and underneath all this there is a holy, God-planted, God-tended root. If the primary root of the tree is holy, there’s bound to be some holy fruit. Some of the tree’s branches were pruned and you wild olive shoots were grafted in. Yet the fact that you are now fed by that rich and holy root gives you no cause to crow over the pruned branches. Remember, you aren’t feeding the root; the root is feeding you.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 07, 2016
Read: Psalm 110
The word of God to my Lord:
“Sit alongside me here on my throne
until I make your enemies a stool for your feet.”
You were forged a strong scepter by God of Zion;
now rule, though surrounded by enemies!
Your people will freely join you, resplendent in holy armor
on the great day of your conquest,
Join you at the fresh break of day,
join you with all the vigor of youth.
4-7 God gave his word and he won’t take it back:
you’re the permanent priest, the Melchizedek priest.
The Lord stands true at your side,
crushing kings in his terrible wrath,
Bringing judgment on the nations,
handing out convictions wholesale,
crushing opposition across the wide earth.
The King-Maker put his King on the throne;
the True King rules with head held high!
INSIGHT:
Psalm 110 is one of many Messianic psalms. These prophetic Hebrew hymns are called Messianic because they predict the coming of God’s anointed king or Christ (Messiah means Christ) which is Jesus. This particular psalm reaches both back and forward in the biblical text to teach us something about who Jesus is and the role He plays in bridging the gap between God and humanity.
A Difficult Hill
By David Roper
He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high. Psalm 110:7
High in a fold of Jughandle Peak in the mountains north of our home in Idaho lies a glacial lake. The route to the lake goes up a steep, exposed ridge through boulders and loose stones. It’s a strenuous ascent.
At the beginning of the climb, however, there is a brook—a spring that seeps out of soft, mossy earth and flows through a lush meadow. It’s a quiet place to drink deeply and prepare for the hard climb ahead.
Come to Him with all your weakness, weariness, helplessness, fear, and doubt.
In John Bunyan’s classic allegory of the Christian life, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian arrives at the foot of a steep ascent called the Hill Difficulty, “at the bottom of which was a spring . . . Christian now went to the spring and drank to refresh himself, and then began to go up the hill.”
Perhaps the difficult mountain you face is a rebellious child or a serious medical diagnosis. The challenge seems more than you can endure.
Before you face your next major task, visit the spring of refreshment that is God Himself. Come to Him with all your weakness, weariness, helplessness, fear, and doubt. Then drink deeply of His power, strength, and wisdom. God knows all your circumstances and will supply a store of comfort, of spiritual strengthening and consolation. He will lift up your head and give you strength to go on.
Father, at this moment I turn to You for strength in my weakness, energy for my weariness, and faith in my doubt.
To help strengthen your trust in God, read Hope: Choosing Faith Instead of Fear at discoveryseries.org/q0733
He who overrules all things . . . enabled Christian to . . . continue on his way. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 07, 2016
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God… —Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can’t understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, “I’m going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that.” All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don’t ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession— utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, “…but the Spirit Himself makes intercession” in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 07, 2016
Looking Backward, Missing What's Ahead - #7781
Two roller coasters. Only one seemed like a real option to me. I should point out that I really don't do roller coasters much. "Because you're chicken," you say. No, because I'm too short. I just don't measure up to that little height chart that they have at the entrance to the coaster. Actually, I have a friend who declines roller coaster invitations by saying, "I can't. I have an inner ear problem." I like that. I may have to remember that one. For whatever reason, my rides on roller coasters are few and far between. But at this particular amusement park that I visited a few years ago, they had two roller coasters side by side and two lines to get to them. Over one line was a sign that said, "Forward." Over the other line, a sign that said – yeah, you guessed it – "Backward." You can ride looking forward or looking backward. Like this is a choice?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Looking Backward, Missing What's Ahead."
There are two lines in life, and two cars you can ride in. One says, "Forward" and the other says, "Backward." You choose. Frankly, I don't want to ride looking back at where I've already been. I want to ride looking ahead to where I'm going. I hope you do, too.
And that's what God wants for you. In our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 43:18-19 – some of my anchor verses. Here's what He says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." God wants today to be the first day of the rest of your life, not just another day of what your life has been up until now. This can be page one of a whole new volume or just another page of the same old story.
Maybe you've been riding too long looking backward. You keep rehearsing and reliving the hurt of your past, your failures, the painful losses you've experienced, and the regrets over what you've done or what you should have done. But that's the past, and none of it can be changed. But if you don't move beyond the pain, the anger, the bitterness, the self-pity, the grief, and the self-condemnation – if you keep dwelling on that, you'll miss the part of your life that can be changed – the future.
One of God's great representatives, Paul, said, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). Jesus is the Lord of new beginnings, of fresh starts, of clean slates. You need to come to Him and let Him release you from being tied to the people who've hurt you, by getting His grace to forgive them. You need to ask His help to begin to define your life, not by what has happened, but by what's going to happen; what can happen because of Jesus in your life.
Just a few verses after God's call to forget the past and go for His new thing, He tells us how that's possible. He says, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions...and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). That's what Jesus wants to do for you. It's why He died on that cross and why He rose again from His grave. He paid the death penalty for every wrong thing you've ever done so He could erase your sin from God's book forever, because otherwise, your sin will cost you heaven.
A new beginning. A fresh start. A clean slate. If you're at the point in your life where that's what you want, then it's time to open up your life to Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of new beginnings. You can reach out to Him right where you are and tell Him something like this, "Jesus, I've run my own life long enough and, as a result, there's a lot in my past I want to be rid of. So right now I'm grabbing you with both hands, and I'm pinning all my hopes on you because you died for me. I want today to be the first day of a new life; of a new me."
There's a lot more great information about how to begin this relationship and be sure you belong to Jesus if you go to our website, appropriately named ANewStory.com. Your new story could begin today.
You've been looking back long enough. There's no reason your life has to be just more of what it's been before, because Jesus has come to you today. And with Jesus, your life will never be the same again.'
Why do we get sick? For the same reason we still sin! Jeremiah prayed, “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise” (Jeremiah 17:14 NIV).
This is a fallen world, and the kingdom is a coming kingdom. Sickness and sin stalk our planet. But neither sin nor sickness will have dominion over God’s people. Sin cannot condemn us and disease cannot destroy us. Guilt is defanged, and death has lost its sting. The very sin and sickness that Satan intends for evil, God redeems–He redeems it for good. Sin becomes a showcase of his grace. Sickness becomes a demonstration of God’s ability to heal. Every fiber, molecule, and brainwave answers to his command. God is in charge!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 11:1-18
The Loyal Minority
Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that! So we’re not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them.
2-6 Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer?
God, they murdered your prophets,
They trashed your altars;
I’m the only one left and now they’re after me!
And do you remember God’s answer?
I still have seven thousand who haven’t quit,
Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish.
It’s the same today. There’s a fiercely loyal minority still—not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They’re holding on, not because of what they think they’re going to get out of it, but because they’re convinced of God’s grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.
7-10 And then what happened? Well, when Israel tried to be right with God on her own, pursuing her own self-interest, she didn’t succeed. The chosen ones of God were those who let God pursue his interest in them, and as a result received his stamp of legitimacy. The “self-interest Israel” became thick-skinned toward God. Moses and Isaiah both commented on this:
Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways,
God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears,
Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors,
and they’re there to this day.
David was upset about the same thing:
I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals,
break a leg walking their self-serving ways.
I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors,
get ulcers from playing at god.
Pruning and Grafting Branches
11-12 The next question is, “Are they down for the count? Are they out of this for good?” And the answer is a clear-cut No. Ironically when they walked out, they left the door open and the outsiders walked in. But the next thing you know, the Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing. Now, if their leaving triggered this worldwide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!
13-15 But I don’t want to go on about them. It’s you, the outsiders, that I’m concerned with now. Because my personal assignment is focused on the so-called outsiders, I make as much of this as I can when I’m among my Israelite kin, the so-called insiders, hoping they’ll realize what they’re missing and want to get in on what God is doing. If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If the first thing the Jews did, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what’s going to happen when they get it right!
16-18 Behind and underneath all this there is a holy, God-planted, God-tended root. If the primary root of the tree is holy, there’s bound to be some holy fruit. Some of the tree’s branches were pruned and you wild olive shoots were grafted in. Yet the fact that you are now fed by that rich and holy root gives you no cause to crow over the pruned branches. Remember, you aren’t feeding the root; the root is feeding you.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 07, 2016
Read: Psalm 110
The word of God to my Lord:
“Sit alongside me here on my throne
until I make your enemies a stool for your feet.”
You were forged a strong scepter by God of Zion;
now rule, though surrounded by enemies!
Your people will freely join you, resplendent in holy armor
on the great day of your conquest,
Join you at the fresh break of day,
join you with all the vigor of youth.
4-7 God gave his word and he won’t take it back:
you’re the permanent priest, the Melchizedek priest.
The Lord stands true at your side,
crushing kings in his terrible wrath,
Bringing judgment on the nations,
handing out convictions wholesale,
crushing opposition across the wide earth.
The King-Maker put his King on the throne;
the True King rules with head held high!
INSIGHT:
Psalm 110 is one of many Messianic psalms. These prophetic Hebrew hymns are called Messianic because they predict the coming of God’s anointed king or Christ (Messiah means Christ) which is Jesus. This particular psalm reaches both back and forward in the biblical text to teach us something about who Jesus is and the role He plays in bridging the gap between God and humanity.
A Difficult Hill
By David Roper
He will drink from a brook along the way, and so he will lift his head high. Psalm 110:7
High in a fold of Jughandle Peak in the mountains north of our home in Idaho lies a glacial lake. The route to the lake goes up a steep, exposed ridge through boulders and loose stones. It’s a strenuous ascent.
At the beginning of the climb, however, there is a brook—a spring that seeps out of soft, mossy earth and flows through a lush meadow. It’s a quiet place to drink deeply and prepare for the hard climb ahead.
Come to Him with all your weakness, weariness, helplessness, fear, and doubt.
In John Bunyan’s classic allegory of the Christian life, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian arrives at the foot of a steep ascent called the Hill Difficulty, “at the bottom of which was a spring . . . Christian now went to the spring and drank to refresh himself, and then began to go up the hill.”
Perhaps the difficult mountain you face is a rebellious child or a serious medical diagnosis. The challenge seems more than you can endure.
Before you face your next major task, visit the spring of refreshment that is God Himself. Come to Him with all your weakness, weariness, helplessness, fear, and doubt. Then drink deeply of His power, strength, and wisdom. God knows all your circumstances and will supply a store of comfort, of spiritual strengthening and consolation. He will lift up your head and give you strength to go on.
Father, at this moment I turn to You for strength in my weakness, energy for my weariness, and faith in my doubt.
To help strengthen your trust in God, read Hope: Choosing Faith Instead of Fear at discoveryseries.org/q0733
He who overrules all things . . . enabled Christian to . . . continue on his way. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 07, 2016
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God… —Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can’t understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, “I’m going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that.” All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don’t ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession— utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, “…but the Spirit Himself makes intercession” in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 07, 2016
Looking Backward, Missing What's Ahead - #7781
Two roller coasters. Only one seemed like a real option to me. I should point out that I really don't do roller coasters much. "Because you're chicken," you say. No, because I'm too short. I just don't measure up to that little height chart that they have at the entrance to the coaster. Actually, I have a friend who declines roller coaster invitations by saying, "I can't. I have an inner ear problem." I like that. I may have to remember that one. For whatever reason, my rides on roller coasters are few and far between. But at this particular amusement park that I visited a few years ago, they had two roller coasters side by side and two lines to get to them. Over one line was a sign that said, "Forward." Over the other line, a sign that said – yeah, you guessed it – "Backward." You can ride looking forward or looking backward. Like this is a choice?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Looking Backward, Missing What's Ahead."
There are two lines in life, and two cars you can ride in. One says, "Forward" and the other says, "Backward." You choose. Frankly, I don't want to ride looking back at where I've already been. I want to ride looking ahead to where I'm going. I hope you do, too.
And that's what God wants for you. In our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 43:18-19 – some of my anchor verses. Here's what He says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." God wants today to be the first day of the rest of your life, not just another day of what your life has been up until now. This can be page one of a whole new volume or just another page of the same old story.
Maybe you've been riding too long looking backward. You keep rehearsing and reliving the hurt of your past, your failures, the painful losses you've experienced, and the regrets over what you've done or what you should have done. But that's the past, and none of it can be changed. But if you don't move beyond the pain, the anger, the bitterness, the self-pity, the grief, and the self-condemnation – if you keep dwelling on that, you'll miss the part of your life that can be changed – the future.
One of God's great representatives, Paul, said, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). Jesus is the Lord of new beginnings, of fresh starts, of clean slates. You need to come to Him and let Him release you from being tied to the people who've hurt you, by getting His grace to forgive them. You need to ask His help to begin to define your life, not by what has happened, but by what's going to happen; what can happen because of Jesus in your life.
Just a few verses after God's call to forget the past and go for His new thing, He tells us how that's possible. He says, "I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions...and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). That's what Jesus wants to do for you. It's why He died on that cross and why He rose again from His grave. He paid the death penalty for every wrong thing you've ever done so He could erase your sin from God's book forever, because otherwise, your sin will cost you heaven.
A new beginning. A fresh start. A clean slate. If you're at the point in your life where that's what you want, then it's time to open up your life to Jesus Christ. He's the Lord of new beginnings. You can reach out to Him right where you are and tell Him something like this, "Jesus, I've run my own life long enough and, as a result, there's a lot in my past I want to be rid of. So right now I'm grabbing you with both hands, and I'm pinning all my hopes on you because you died for me. I want today to be the first day of a new life; of a new me."
There's a lot more great information about how to begin this relationship and be sure you belong to Jesus if you go to our website, appropriately named ANewStory.com. Your new story could begin today.
You've been looking back long enough. There's no reason your life has to be just more of what it's been before, because Jesus has come to you today. And with Jesus, your life will never be the same again.'
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Romans 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: How Bold Are Your Prayers?
As John Wesley was crossing the Atlantic Ocean, heavy winds came up. He was reading in his cabin when he became aware the winds were knocking the ship off course, and he responded in prayer. Adam Clarke, a colleague, wrote it down.
"Almighty and everlasting God. . .Thou holdest the winds in thy fists and sittest upon the water . . .command these winds and these waves that they obey thee, and take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go."
Wesley stood up from his knees, took up his book, and continued to read. Dr. Clarke went on deck where he found calm winds and the ship on course. Wesley made no remark about the answered prayer. Clarke wrote, "So fully did he expect to be heard that he took it for granted that he was heard."
How bold are your prayers?
From Glory Days
Romans 10
Israel Reduced to Religion
Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what’s best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time. I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God—but they are doing everything exactly backward. They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily hawk their wares. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it.
4-10 The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?
The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
11-13 Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”
14-17 But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,
A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people
telling all the good things of God!
But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.
18-21 But haven’t there been plenty of opportunities for Israel to listen and understand what’s going on? Plenty, I’d say.
Preachers’ voices have gone ’round the world,
Their message to earth’s seven seas.
So the big question is, Why didn’t Israel understand that she had no corner on this message? Moses had it right when he predicted,
When you see God reach out to those
you consider your inferiors—outsiders!—
you’ll become insanely jealous.
When you see God reach out to people
you think are religiously stupid,
you’ll throw temper tantrums.
Isaiah dared to speak out these words of God:
People found and welcomed me
who never so much as looked for me.
And I found and welcomed people
who had never even asked about me.
Then he capped it with a damning indictment:
Day after day after day,
I beckoned Israel with open arms,
And got nothing for my trouble
but cold shoulders and icy stares.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Read: 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; 13:4–7
Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7The Message (MSG)
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
INSIGHT:
Without the correct biblical frame of reference, 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 could lead us to believe certain kinds of sins are unforgivable. Does today’s Bible reading actually teach that certain sinners are beyond redemption? The answer lies in the contrasting sentence that provides us with a clearer picture of what the apostle is saying: “And that is what some of you were [emphasis mine]. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (v. 11). It is not the committing of sins that condemns irrevocably. It is the continuous lifestyle of sin that indicates a person has not experienced regeneration through faith in Christ.
A Safe Place
By Poh Fang Chia
That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11
A young Japanese man had a problem—he was afraid of leaving his house. To avoid other people, he slept through the day and stayed up all night watching TV. He was a hikikomori or a modern-day hermit. The problem began when he stopped going to school because of poor grades. The longer he remained apart from society, the more he felt like a social misfit. Eventually he broke off all communication with his friends and family. He was helped on his journey to recovery, though, by visiting a youth club in Tokyo known as an ibasho—a safe place where broken people could start reintroducing themselves to society.
What if we thought of the church as an ibasho—and far more? Without a doubt, we are a community of broken people. When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth he described their former way of life as anti-social, harmful, and dangerous to themselves and others (1 Cor. 6:9–10). But in Jesus they were being transformed and made whole. And Paul encouraged these rescued people to love one another, to be patient and kind, not to be jealous or proud or rude (13:4–7).
Dear Lord, thank You for paying the penalty for my sins and giving me new life.
The church is to be an ibasho where all of us, no matter what struggles or brokenness we face, can know and experience God’s love. May the hurting world experience the compassion of Christ from all who follow Him.
Dear Lord, thank You for paying the penalty for my sins by Your death and resurrection and giving me new life. Help me to live a life that honors Your holy name and to love others as You have loved me.
Only God can transform a sin-stained soul into a masterpiece of grace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Intimate Theology
Do you believe this? —John 11:26
Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But— she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance— “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ…” (John 11:27).
Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you— “Do you believe this?” Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, “Do you believe this?” I find that faith is as natural as breathing. And I am staggered when I think how foolish I have been in not trusting Him earlier.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy. Shade of His Hand, 1223
As John Wesley was crossing the Atlantic Ocean, heavy winds came up. He was reading in his cabin when he became aware the winds were knocking the ship off course, and he responded in prayer. Adam Clarke, a colleague, wrote it down.
"Almighty and everlasting God. . .Thou holdest the winds in thy fists and sittest upon the water . . .command these winds and these waves that they obey thee, and take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go."
Wesley stood up from his knees, took up his book, and continued to read. Dr. Clarke went on deck where he found calm winds and the ship on course. Wesley made no remark about the answered prayer. Clarke wrote, "So fully did he expect to be heard that he took it for granted that he was heard."
How bold are your prayers?
From Glory Days
Romans 10
Israel Reduced to Religion
Believe me, friends, all I want for Israel is what’s best for Israel: salvation, nothing less. I want it with all my heart and pray to God for it all the time. I readily admit that the Jews are impressively energetic regarding God—but they are doing everything exactly backward. They don’t seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God’s business, and a most flourishing business it is. Right across the street they set up their own salvation shops and noisily hawk their wares. After all these years of refusing to really deal with God on his terms, insisting instead on making their own deals, they have nothing to show for it.
4-10 The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?
The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
11-13 Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.”
14-17 But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,
A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people
telling all the good things of God!
But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.
18-21 But haven’t there been plenty of opportunities for Israel to listen and understand what’s going on? Plenty, I’d say.
Preachers’ voices have gone ’round the world,
Their message to earth’s seven seas.
So the big question is, Why didn’t Israel understand that she had no corner on this message? Moses had it right when he predicted,
When you see God reach out to those
you consider your inferiors—outsiders!—
you’ll become insanely jealous.
When you see God reach out to people
you think are religiously stupid,
you’ll throw temper tantrums.
Isaiah dared to speak out these words of God:
People found and welcomed me
who never so much as looked for me.
And I found and welcomed people
who had never even asked about me.
Then he capped it with a damning indictment:
Day after day after day,
I beckoned Israel with open arms,
And got nothing for my trouble
but cold shoulders and icy stares.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Read: 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; 13:4–7
Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7The Message (MSG)
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
INSIGHT:
Without the correct biblical frame of reference, 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 could lead us to believe certain kinds of sins are unforgivable. Does today’s Bible reading actually teach that certain sinners are beyond redemption? The answer lies in the contrasting sentence that provides us with a clearer picture of what the apostle is saying: “And that is what some of you were [emphasis mine]. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (v. 11). It is not the committing of sins that condemns irrevocably. It is the continuous lifestyle of sin that indicates a person has not experienced regeneration through faith in Christ.
A Safe Place
By Poh Fang Chia
That is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11
A young Japanese man had a problem—he was afraid of leaving his house. To avoid other people, he slept through the day and stayed up all night watching TV. He was a hikikomori or a modern-day hermit. The problem began when he stopped going to school because of poor grades. The longer he remained apart from society, the more he felt like a social misfit. Eventually he broke off all communication with his friends and family. He was helped on his journey to recovery, though, by visiting a youth club in Tokyo known as an ibasho—a safe place where broken people could start reintroducing themselves to society.
What if we thought of the church as an ibasho—and far more? Without a doubt, we are a community of broken people. When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth he described their former way of life as anti-social, harmful, and dangerous to themselves and others (1 Cor. 6:9–10). But in Jesus they were being transformed and made whole. And Paul encouraged these rescued people to love one another, to be patient and kind, not to be jealous or proud or rude (13:4–7).
Dear Lord, thank You for paying the penalty for my sins and giving me new life.
The church is to be an ibasho where all of us, no matter what struggles or brokenness we face, can know and experience God’s love. May the hurting world experience the compassion of Christ from all who follow Him.
Dear Lord, thank You for paying the penalty for my sins by Your death and resurrection and giving me new life. Help me to live a life that honors Your holy name and to love others as You have loved me.
Only God can transform a sin-stained soul into a masterpiece of grace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Intimate Theology
Do you believe this? —John 11:26
Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But— she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance— “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ…” (John 11:27).
Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you— “Do you believe this?” Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need.
To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone.
Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, “Do you believe this?” I find that faith is as natural as breathing. And I am staggered when I think how foolish I have been in not trusting Him earlier.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy. Shade of His Hand, 1223
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Isaiah 55, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Choose Obedience
Remember where you are! As a child of God, you are in the Promised Land. Not geographically but spiritually. This is the land of grace and hope…freedom and truth…love and life! The devil has no jurisdiction over you. He acts as if he does. He walks with a swagger and brings temptation, but as you resist him and turn to God, James 4:7 tells us, he must flee.
Voices await you today. In your cul-de-sac, at school, and on the Internet. They are waiting for you. You cannot eliminate their presence, but you can prepare for their invitation. You are indwelled by the Spirit of the living God. You are His! Decide now what you will say then. Choose obedience! And as you do you can expect blessings. The blessings of a clear conscience, a good night's sleep, and the blessing of God's favor.
From Glory Days
Isaiah 55
Buy Without Money
“Hey there! All who are thirsty,
come to the water!
Are you penniless?
Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
I set him up as a witness to the nations,
made him a prince and leader of the nations,
And now I’m doing it to you:
You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of,
and nations who’ve never heard of you
will come running to you
Because of me, your God,
because The Holy of Israel has honored you.”
6-7 Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
8-11 “I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.
12-13 “So you’ll go out in joy,
you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Read: Philippians 1:27–2:4
Meanwhile, live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the Message, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they’re up against: defeat for them, victory for you—and both because of God. There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting. You’re involved in the same kind of struggle you saw me go through, on which you are now getting an updated report in this letter.
He Took on the Status of a Slave
2 1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
INSIGHT:
Philippians was written by the apostle Paul to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Philippi. Paul had met many of these church members several years earlier when he visited this Roman colony in the heart of Macedonia. The church had begun with the conversion of a small group of women—including a wealthy Thyatiran clothing dealer named Lydia—who met to worship God on the banks of the Krenides River outside the city gates (Acts 16:11–15). Now many years later Paul wrote to these friends from prison. He was unsure he would ever see them again to deliver his message in person (1:27). What was the content of this message? Stand firm; stand together; be joyful; there is hope in Christ!
Love in Action
By Amy Boucher Pye
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. Philippians 2:3
“Do you have a few items you’d like me to wash?” I asked a visitor to our home in London. His face lit up, and as his daughter walked by, he said, “Get your dirty clothes—Amy’s doing our laundry!” I smiled, realizing that my offer had been extended from a few items to a few loads.
Later as I hung clothes outside on the line, a phrase from my morning’s Bible reading floated through my mind: “In humility value others above yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). I had been reading Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi, in which he exhorts them to live worthy of Christ’s calling through serving and being united with others. They were facing persecution, but Paul wanted them to be of one mind. He knew that their unity, birthed through their union with Christ and expressed through serving each other, would enable them to keep strong in their faith.
The gift of unity can result from serving each other.
We might claim to love others without selfish ambition or vain conceit, but the true state of our hearts isn’t revealed until we put our love into action. Though I felt tempted to grumble, I knew that as a follower of Christ, my call was to put my love for my friends into practice—with a clean heart.
May we find ways to serve our family, friends, and neighbors for God’s glory.
Read Luke 22:22–27 and consider how you can pattern yourself after Jesus the servant, looking especially at the words, “But I am among you as one who serves.”
The gift of unity can result from serving each other.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Partakers of His Suffering
…but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings… —1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”
Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— “God has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.
So Send I You
Remember where you are! As a child of God, you are in the Promised Land. Not geographically but spiritually. This is the land of grace and hope…freedom and truth…love and life! The devil has no jurisdiction over you. He acts as if he does. He walks with a swagger and brings temptation, but as you resist him and turn to God, James 4:7 tells us, he must flee.
Voices await you today. In your cul-de-sac, at school, and on the Internet. They are waiting for you. You cannot eliminate their presence, but you can prepare for their invitation. You are indwelled by the Spirit of the living God. You are His! Decide now what you will say then. Choose obedience! And as you do you can expect blessings. The blessings of a clear conscience, a good night's sleep, and the blessing of God's favor.
From Glory Days
Isaiah 55
Buy Without Money
“Hey there! All who are thirsty,
come to the water!
Are you penniless?
Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
I set him up as a witness to the nations,
made him a prince and leader of the nations,
And now I’m doing it to you:
You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of,
and nations who’ve never heard of you
will come running to you
Because of me, your God,
because The Holy of Israel has honored you.”
6-7 Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
8-11 “I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.
12-13 “So you’ll go out in joy,
you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Read: Philippians 1:27–2:4
Meanwhile, live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the Message, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they’re up against: defeat for them, victory for you—and both because of God. There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting. You’re involved in the same kind of struggle you saw me go through, on which you are now getting an updated report in this letter.
He Took on the Status of a Slave
2 1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
INSIGHT:
Philippians was written by the apostle Paul to a group of Christians in the ancient city of Philippi. Paul had met many of these church members several years earlier when he visited this Roman colony in the heart of Macedonia. The church had begun with the conversion of a small group of women—including a wealthy Thyatiran clothing dealer named Lydia—who met to worship God on the banks of the Krenides River outside the city gates (Acts 16:11–15). Now many years later Paul wrote to these friends from prison. He was unsure he would ever see them again to deliver his message in person (1:27). What was the content of this message? Stand firm; stand together; be joyful; there is hope in Christ!
Love in Action
By Amy Boucher Pye
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. Philippians 2:3
“Do you have a few items you’d like me to wash?” I asked a visitor to our home in London. His face lit up, and as his daughter walked by, he said, “Get your dirty clothes—Amy’s doing our laundry!” I smiled, realizing that my offer had been extended from a few items to a few loads.
Later as I hung clothes outside on the line, a phrase from my morning’s Bible reading floated through my mind: “In humility value others above yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). I had been reading Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi, in which he exhorts them to live worthy of Christ’s calling through serving and being united with others. They were facing persecution, but Paul wanted them to be of one mind. He knew that their unity, birthed through their union with Christ and expressed through serving each other, would enable them to keep strong in their faith.
The gift of unity can result from serving each other.
We might claim to love others without selfish ambition or vain conceit, but the true state of our hearts isn’t revealed until we put our love into action. Though I felt tempted to grumble, I knew that as a follower of Christ, my call was to put my love for my friends into practice—with a clean heart.
May we find ways to serve our family, friends, and neighbors for God’s glory.
Read Luke 22:22–27 and consider how you can pattern yourself after Jesus the servant, looking especially at the words, “But I am among you as one who serves.”
The gift of unity can result from serving each other.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, November 05, 2016
Partakers of His Suffering
…but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings… —1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.
The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”
Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— “God has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.
So Send I You
Friday, November 4, 2016
Isaiah 54 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: SIN’S REALITY
David dedicated a season of his life to making stupid, idiotic, godless decisions. Yes, David! King David! The man after God’s own heart suppressed his wrongdoing and paid a steep price for doing so. He later described it this way: “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. . .my strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).
Sin’s reality replaced sin’s euphoria. He finally prayed, “LORD, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior” (Psalm 38:21-22 NIV). Bury misbehavior and expect pain—period! You cannot escape the misery is creates, unless you pray as David did: “Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.” Then, grace will come.
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 54
Spread Out! Think Big!
“Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby.
Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth!
You’re ending up with far more children
than all those childbearing women.” God says so!
“Clear lots of ground for your tents!
Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big!
Use plenty of rope,
drive the tent pegs deep.
You’re going to need lots of elbow room
for your growing family.
You’re going to take over whole nations;
you’re going to resettle abandoned cities.
Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed.
Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short.
You’ll forget all about the humiliations of your youth,
and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.
For your Maker is your bridegroom,
his name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel,
known as God of the whole earth.
You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief,
and God welcomed you back,
Like a woman married young
and then left,” says your God.
7-8 Your Redeemer God says:
“I left you, but only for a moment.
Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back.
In an outburst of anger I turned my back on you—
but only for a moment.
It’s with lasting love
that I’m tenderly caring for you.
9-10 “This exile is just like the days of Noah for me:
I promised then that the waters of Noah
would never again flood the earth.
I’m promising now no more anger,
no more dressing you down.
For even if the mountains walk away
and the hills fall to pieces,
My love won’t walk away from you,
my covenant commitment of peace won’t fall apart.”
The God who has compassion on you says so.
11-17 “Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied:
I’m about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
Lay your foundations with sapphires,
construct your towers with rubies,
Your gates with jewels,
and all your walls with precious stones.
All your children will have God for their teacher—
what a mentor for your children!
You’ll be built solid, grounded in righteousness,
far from any trouble—nothing to fear!
far from terror—it won’t even come close!
If anyone attacks you,
don’t for a moment suppose that I sent them,
And if any should attack,
nothing will come of it.
I create the blacksmith
who fires up his forge
and makes a weapon designed to kill.
I also create the destroyer—
but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged.
Any accuser who takes you to court
will be dismissed as a liar.
This is what God’s servants can expect.
I’ll see to it that everything works out for the best.”
God’s Decree.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 04, 2016
Read: John 18:10–14, 36–37
Just then Simon Peter, who was carrying a sword, pulled it from its sheath and struck the Chief Priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. Malchus was the servant’s name.
11 Jesus ordered Peter, “Put back your sword. Do you think for a minute I’m not going to drink this cup the Father gave me?”
12-14 Then the Roman soldiers under their commander, joined by the Jewish police, seized Jesus and tied him up. They took him first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.
John 18:36-37The Message (MSG)
36 “My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.”
37 Then Pilate said, “So, are you a king or not?”
Jesus answered, “You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice.”
INSIGHT:
At Gethsemane Jesus restrained and conquered (or overcame) His own natural inclinations that wished He would not have to undergo the excruciating agony of crucifixion (Luke 22:42). Restraint is not always a high priority in our lives, but we all need help to overcome our natural inclinations. One aspect of the Spirit’s control over us, according to Galatians 5:23, is self-control. Peter tended to be an “open-mouth-insert-foot” kind of guy (Matt. 16:22; 17:4–5). And on impulse he cut off an opponent’s ear (John 18:10). Even as a stallion must be harnessed to do its master’s bidding, so Peter had a lesson to teach us about the value of restraint.
Strong Conqueror
By Tim Gustafson
My kingdom is from another place. John 18:36
Most of us hope for good government. We vote, we serve, and we speak out for causes we believe are fair and just. But political solutions remain powerless to change the condition of our hearts.
Many of Jesus’s followers anticipated a Messiah who would bring a vigorous political response to Rome and its heavy-handed oppression. Peter was no exception. When Roman soldiers came to arrest Christ, Peter drew his sword and took a swing at the head of the high priest’s servant, lopping off his ear in the process.
Real restraint is not weakness, for it arises out of genuine strength.
Jesus halted Peter’s one-man war, saying, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Hours later, Jesus would tell Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders” (v. 36).
The Lord’s restraint in that moment, as His life hung in the balance, astonishes us when we ponder the scope of His mission. On a future day, He will lead the armies of heaven into battle. John wrote, “With justice he judges and wages war” (Rev. 19:11).
But as He endured the ordeal of His arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus kept His Father’s will in view. By embracing death on the cross, He set in motion a chain of events that truly transforms hearts. And in the process, our Strong Conqueror defeated death itself.
Father, how prone I am to reacting quickly rather than wisely. Show me Your will for my life so that I will purposefully choose the path You have for me.
Real restraint is not weakness, for it arises out of genuine strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 04, 2016
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. —James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood— work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
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
Friday, November 04, 2016
Why There Are Desperate Housewives - #7780
Some years ago there was a, well, then a new TV show, and I was surprised that it caught on. The title was Desperate Housewives, and it actually sky-rocketed into being a hit its very first season. I thought, "How come a show named Desperate Housewives would be so popular?" You wonder if there are a lot of women that could relate to that title. Maybe in reality there are more than a few of those desperate housewives.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why There Are Desperate Housewives."
Proverbs 31 in the Bible presents God's idea of an awesome woman. She's not a desperate housewife. In fact, she's a wife who's strong, secure and satisfied. She's really making a difference for her family and her community. And one of the big reasons she's this kind of woman is revealed in our word for today from the Word of God in Proverbs 31:23-24. The Bible says: "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. (Here's what he tells her.) 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.'"
No wonder this is God's "Wonder Woman." She's married to a man who makes her feel wonderful! I'm guessing the reason her children praise her is because they've heard their dad treat their mom that way.
If we look at this from the flip side, we could surmise that one reason some wives are desperate or discouraged or negative is a husband who is failing them in his most basic responsibility – to be a provider. Yes, he's supposed to supply for his wife materially, and most guys do that. But that's the easy part. What a woman needs most from her man is AAA treatment; meeting her need for affection, for attention, for affirmation.
So each married man should be giving himself a little three-question test about how he treats his wife. First, am I loving her in the ways that make her feel loved? Secondly, am I offering her my exclusive attention on a regular basis? Thirdly, am I building her confidence by frequently praising her for specific strengths that I see in her? The man who can answer "yes" to those questions is really a man – a provider for his woman's greatest needs.
Ephesians 5 lays out a beautiful picture of how a husband and wife are to love and support each other. In the verses that precede that marriage blueprint, God says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building others up" (Ephesians 4:29). For Husbanding 101, this means lose the comments that tear your bride down; the critical comments, the insults, and the putdowns.
Then, Ephesians 5:1 tells us to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us." That's love demonstrated, not just with words and flowers and cards – although those aren't bad ideas – but with sacrifice. Pitching in to help her when you're really tired, listening to her heart when you're all listened out, and putting her needs ahead of your needs. God reaffirms that a few verses later when He says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."
One day at an altar, you pledged to cherish and protect and love and care for that woman you were marrying and she believed you. God was there as a witness, and He believed you. He entrusted her life into your hands. She entrusted her life and her happiness into your hands. The manliest thing you'll ever do is to keep those promises – provide for her deepest needs.
She won't be a desperate housewife. She will be a woman who knows that she's safe, knows she's treasured, and knows she's loved. And she'll live like it because of a husband who was, in God's eyes and her eyes, a real man.
David dedicated a season of his life to making stupid, idiotic, godless decisions. Yes, David! King David! The man after God’s own heart suppressed his wrongdoing and paid a steep price for doing so. He later described it this way: “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. . .my strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).
Sin’s reality replaced sin’s euphoria. He finally prayed, “LORD, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior” (Psalm 38:21-22 NIV). Bury misbehavior and expect pain—period! You cannot escape the misery is creates, unless you pray as David did: “Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.” Then, grace will come.
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 54
Spread Out! Think Big!
“Sing, barren woman, who has never had a baby.
Fill the air with song, you who’ve never experienced childbirth!
You’re ending up with far more children
than all those childbearing women.” God says so!
“Clear lots of ground for your tents!
Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big!
Use plenty of rope,
drive the tent pegs deep.
You’re going to need lots of elbow room
for your growing family.
You’re going to take over whole nations;
you’re going to resettle abandoned cities.
Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed.
Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short.
You’ll forget all about the humiliations of your youth,
and the indignities of being a widow will fade from memory.
For your Maker is your bridegroom,
his name, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
Your Redeemer is The Holy of Israel,
known as God of the whole earth.
You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief,
and God welcomed you back,
Like a woman married young
and then left,” says your God.
7-8 Your Redeemer God says:
“I left you, but only for a moment.
Now, with enormous compassion, I’m bringing you back.
In an outburst of anger I turned my back on you—
but only for a moment.
It’s with lasting love
that I’m tenderly caring for you.
9-10 “This exile is just like the days of Noah for me:
I promised then that the waters of Noah
would never again flood the earth.
I’m promising now no more anger,
no more dressing you down.
For even if the mountains walk away
and the hills fall to pieces,
My love won’t walk away from you,
my covenant commitment of peace won’t fall apart.”
The God who has compassion on you says so.
11-17 “Afflicted city, storm-battered, unpitied:
I’m about to rebuild you with stones of turquoise,
Lay your foundations with sapphires,
construct your towers with rubies,
Your gates with jewels,
and all your walls with precious stones.
All your children will have God for their teacher—
what a mentor for your children!
You’ll be built solid, grounded in righteousness,
far from any trouble—nothing to fear!
far from terror—it won’t even come close!
If anyone attacks you,
don’t for a moment suppose that I sent them,
And if any should attack,
nothing will come of it.
I create the blacksmith
who fires up his forge
and makes a weapon designed to kill.
I also create the destroyer—
but no weapon that can hurt you has ever been forged.
Any accuser who takes you to court
will be dismissed as a liar.
This is what God’s servants can expect.
I’ll see to it that everything works out for the best.”
God’s Decree.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 04, 2016
Read: John 18:10–14, 36–37
Just then Simon Peter, who was carrying a sword, pulled it from its sheath and struck the Chief Priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. Malchus was the servant’s name.
11 Jesus ordered Peter, “Put back your sword. Do you think for a minute I’m not going to drink this cup the Father gave me?”
12-14 Then the Roman soldiers under their commander, joined by the Jewish police, seized Jesus and tied him up. They took him first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the Chief Priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was to their advantage that one man die for the people.
John 18:36-37The Message (MSG)
36 “My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.”
37 Then Pilate said, “So, are you a king or not?”
Jesus answered, “You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice.”
INSIGHT:
At Gethsemane Jesus restrained and conquered (or overcame) His own natural inclinations that wished He would not have to undergo the excruciating agony of crucifixion (Luke 22:42). Restraint is not always a high priority in our lives, but we all need help to overcome our natural inclinations. One aspect of the Spirit’s control over us, according to Galatians 5:23, is self-control. Peter tended to be an “open-mouth-insert-foot” kind of guy (Matt. 16:22; 17:4–5). And on impulse he cut off an opponent’s ear (John 18:10). Even as a stallion must be harnessed to do its master’s bidding, so Peter had a lesson to teach us about the value of restraint.
Strong Conqueror
By Tim Gustafson
My kingdom is from another place. John 18:36
Most of us hope for good government. We vote, we serve, and we speak out for causes we believe are fair and just. But political solutions remain powerless to change the condition of our hearts.
Many of Jesus’s followers anticipated a Messiah who would bring a vigorous political response to Rome and its heavy-handed oppression. Peter was no exception. When Roman soldiers came to arrest Christ, Peter drew his sword and took a swing at the head of the high priest’s servant, lopping off his ear in the process.
Real restraint is not weakness, for it arises out of genuine strength.
Jesus halted Peter’s one-man war, saying, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Hours later, Jesus would tell Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders” (v. 36).
The Lord’s restraint in that moment, as His life hung in the balance, astonishes us when we ponder the scope of His mission. On a future day, He will lead the armies of heaven into battle. John wrote, “With justice he judges and wages war” (Rev. 19:11).
But as He endured the ordeal of His arrest, trial, and crucifixion, Jesus kept His Father’s will in view. By embracing death on the cross, He set in motion a chain of events that truly transforms hearts. And in the process, our Strong Conqueror defeated death itself.
Father, how prone I am to reacting quickly rather than wisely. Show me Your will for my life so that I will purposefully choose the path You have for me.
Real restraint is not weakness, for it arises out of genuine strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 04, 2016
The Authority of Truth
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. —James 4:8
It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.
When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood— work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.
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
Friday, November 04, 2016
Why There Are Desperate Housewives - #7780
Some years ago there was a, well, then a new TV show, and I was surprised that it caught on. The title was Desperate Housewives, and it actually sky-rocketed into being a hit its very first season. I thought, "How come a show named Desperate Housewives would be so popular?" You wonder if there are a lot of women that could relate to that title. Maybe in reality there are more than a few of those desperate housewives.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why There Are Desperate Housewives."
Proverbs 31 in the Bible presents God's idea of an awesome woman. She's not a desperate housewife. In fact, she's a wife who's strong, secure and satisfied. She's really making a difference for her family and her community. And one of the big reasons she's this kind of woman is revealed in our word for today from the Word of God in Proverbs 31:23-24. The Bible says: "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. (Here's what he tells her.) 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.'"
No wonder this is God's "Wonder Woman." She's married to a man who makes her feel wonderful! I'm guessing the reason her children praise her is because they've heard their dad treat their mom that way.
If we look at this from the flip side, we could surmise that one reason some wives are desperate or discouraged or negative is a husband who is failing them in his most basic responsibility – to be a provider. Yes, he's supposed to supply for his wife materially, and most guys do that. But that's the easy part. What a woman needs most from her man is AAA treatment; meeting her need for affection, for attention, for affirmation.
So each married man should be giving himself a little three-question test about how he treats his wife. First, am I loving her in the ways that make her feel loved? Secondly, am I offering her my exclusive attention on a regular basis? Thirdly, am I building her confidence by frequently praising her for specific strengths that I see in her? The man who can answer "yes" to those questions is really a man – a provider for his woman's greatest needs.
Ephesians 5 lays out a beautiful picture of how a husband and wife are to love and support each other. In the verses that precede that marriage blueprint, God says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building others up" (Ephesians 4:29). For Husbanding 101, this means lose the comments that tear your bride down; the critical comments, the insults, and the putdowns.
Then, Ephesians 5:1 tells us to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us." That's love demonstrated, not just with words and flowers and cards – although those aren't bad ideas – but with sacrifice. Pitching in to help her when you're really tired, listening to her heart when you're all listened out, and putting her needs ahead of your needs. God reaffirms that a few verses later when He says, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."
One day at an altar, you pledged to cherish and protect and love and care for that woman you were marrying and she believed you. God was there as a witness, and He believed you. He entrusted her life into your hands. She entrusted her life and her happiness into your hands. The manliest thing you'll ever do is to keep those promises – provide for her deepest needs.
She won't be a desperate housewife. She will be a woman who knows that she's safe, knows she's treasured, and knows she's loved. And she'll live like it because of a husband who was, in God's eyes and her eyes, a real man.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Isaiah 53 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: CHOOSE OBEDIENCE
All kinds of voices await you today! At work, in your neighborhood, at school, on the Internet. You cannot eliminate their presence, but you can prepare for their invitation!
Remember who you are. You are God’s child. You’ve been bought by the most precious commodity in the history of the universe: the blood of Christ…and you’re indwelled by the Spirit of the living God. You are being equipped for an eternal assignment that will empower you to live in the very presence of Jesus. The Devil has no jurisdiction over you. He acts as if he does. He walks with a swagger and brings temptation, but as you resist him and turn to God, Satan must flee (James 4:7). Decide now to choose obedience. And as you do, you can expect blessings—and the assurance of God’s help!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 53
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
7-9 He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.
10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
11-12 Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many “righteous ones,”
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Read: Philemon 8–18
To Call the Slave Your Friend
In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ’s ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn’t hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I’d rather make it a personal request.
10-14 While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message. But I didn’t want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn’t willingly agreed to.
15-16 Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.
17-20 So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me. If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account. This is my personal signature—Paul—and I stand behind it. (I don’t need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?) Do me this big favor, friend. You’ll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.
INSIGHT:
Paul’s appeal of love to Philemon was rooted in his spiritual parenthood. In other letters, Paul spoke of himself as a father to those he brought to Christ (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Gal. 4:19). In this personal letter, Paul noted that Onesimus had become his spiritual son (v. 10). Then at the end of his letter, to reinforce his appeal, Paul reminded Philemon that he too was his spiritual son (v. 19). Paul used his fatherly authority to bring about reconciliation. It was the appeal of a father’s love and an appeal to family love for the reconciliation of two spiritual siblings.
Leading with Love
By David McCasland
I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. Philemon 9
In his book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders explores the qualities and the importance of tact and diplomacy. “Combining these two words,” Sanders says, “the idea emerges of skill in reconciling opposing viewpoints without giving offense and without compromising principle.”
During Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, he became the spiritual mentor and close friend of a runaway slave named Onesimus, whose owner was Philemon. When Paul wrote to Philemon, a leader of the church in Colossae, asking him to receive Onesimus as a brother in Christ, he exemplified tact and diplomacy. “Although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. . . . [Onesimus] is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord” (Philem. 8–9, 16).
Leaders who serve will serve as good leaders.
Paul, a respected leader of the early church, often gave clear commands to the followers of Jesus. In this case, though, he appealed to Philemon on the basis of equality, friendship, and love. “I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary” (v. 14).
In all our relationships, may we seek to preserve harmony and principle in the spirit of love.
Father in heaven, in all our relationships, give us grace and wisdom to be wise leaders, parents, and friends.
Leaders who serve will serve as good leaders.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 03, 2016
A Bondservant of Jesus
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… —Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, “…for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ….”
The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 03, 2016
No Conquest Without Risk - #7779
Excuse me, but I don't expect to be inspired when I eat at McDonald's. Fed, but not inspired. But recently there was a little inspiration with my burger and fries. There was this striking poster on the wall. It showed two mountain climbers near the peak of this Alpine mountain, straining to reach the top. But it was the inscription that impressed me most. "Conquest without risk is a triumph without glory." That's pretty good.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft,and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Conquest Without Risk."
That doesn't just apply to reaching the top of a mountain. In fact, it pretty much describes everything worth doing in life. No risk, no meaningful conquest – a triumph without glory. Low risk – low return. High risk – high return. It's a principle that defines spiritual greatness or spiritual mediocrity.
In Numbers 13, the conquest was not a mountain; it was the taking of the Promised Land that God had promised. Of course, it was currently inhabited by fierce people who, of course, didn't plan to hand it over. And whether or not they would ever experience all God had for them depended on whether or not they would trust Him enough to take some big risks. Now whether or not you experience all God has for you may depend on that same thing.
Twelve scouts had explored the land of Canaan, and they reported back on the fabulous beauty and bounty they found there. But ten of those scouts chose to focus on the risks, two on the Lord who had promised them this land. It boiled down to an exchange like this, recorded in our word for today from the Word of God in Numbers 13, beginning with verse 30.
"Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, 'We should go up and take possession of the land for we certainly can do it.' But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are.' And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, 'The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people there are of great size...we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.'"
You probably know the result. The people followed the lead of the ten scouts who said, "The risks are too great." And they never saw the Promised Land. They chose what was safe, and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They could have had wonderful; instead, they lived and died in the wilderness. Many of God's children over the years have made that same tragic miscalculation. And they have lived that same tragic result.
Right now your Lord may be asking you to follow Him into something risky. To obey Him is going to mean taking a financial risk, or a geographical risk, a social risk, doing something that's way beyond your comfort zone. In fact, serious obedience usually involves risk. But the great danger is not in obeying God's "risky" leading; it is in not obeying because you won't risk it. You'll miss the top of the mountain. You'll miss the best that God has for you. You'll miss the promised land.
Almost always, God's will will take you out of your comfort zone. If you're addicted to your comfort zone, you're almost sure to miss God's best.
Maybe you're all settled in at your little base camp at the bottom of the mountain. You're safe, but you'll never see the view from the top if you stay where you've always been. You can dare to risk if you know your security is never in your situation-it's in your Savior, and He's everywhere you go. Like the old hymn says, "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go"-even if He's leading you where it just doesn't look very safe.
The conquest, the triumph, the glory of living for Christ is for those who are willing to risk.
All kinds of voices await you today! At work, in your neighborhood, at school, on the Internet. You cannot eliminate their presence, but you can prepare for their invitation!
Remember who you are. You are God’s child. You’ve been bought by the most precious commodity in the history of the universe: the blood of Christ…and you’re indwelled by the Spirit of the living God. You are being equipped for an eternal assignment that will empower you to live in the very presence of Jesus. The Devil has no jurisdiction over you. He acts as if he does. He walks with a swagger and brings temptation, but as you resist him and turn to God, Satan must flee (James 4:7). Decide now to choose obedience. And as you do, you can expect blessings—and the assurance of God’s help!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 53
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
7-9 He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.
10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
11-12 Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many “righteous ones,”
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Read: Philemon 8–18
To Call the Slave Your Friend
In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ’s ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn’t hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I’d rather make it a personal request.
10-14 While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message. But I didn’t want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn’t willingly agreed to.
15-16 Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.
17-20 So if you still consider me a comrade-in-arms, welcome him back as you would me. If he damaged anything or owes you anything, chalk it up to my account. This is my personal signature—Paul—and I stand behind it. (I don’t need to remind you, do I, that you owe your very life to me?) Do me this big favor, friend. You’ll be doing it for Christ, but it will also do my heart good.
INSIGHT:
Paul’s appeal of love to Philemon was rooted in his spiritual parenthood. In other letters, Paul spoke of himself as a father to those he brought to Christ (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4; Gal. 4:19). In this personal letter, Paul noted that Onesimus had become his spiritual son (v. 10). Then at the end of his letter, to reinforce his appeal, Paul reminded Philemon that he too was his spiritual son (v. 19). Paul used his fatherly authority to bring about reconciliation. It was the appeal of a father’s love and an appeal to family love for the reconciliation of two spiritual siblings.
Leading with Love
By David McCasland
I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. Philemon 9
In his book Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders explores the qualities and the importance of tact and diplomacy. “Combining these two words,” Sanders says, “the idea emerges of skill in reconciling opposing viewpoints without giving offense and without compromising principle.”
During Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, he became the spiritual mentor and close friend of a runaway slave named Onesimus, whose owner was Philemon. When Paul wrote to Philemon, a leader of the church in Colossae, asking him to receive Onesimus as a brother in Christ, he exemplified tact and diplomacy. “Although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. . . . [Onesimus] is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord” (Philem. 8–9, 16).
Leaders who serve will serve as good leaders.
Paul, a respected leader of the early church, often gave clear commands to the followers of Jesus. In this case, though, he appealed to Philemon on the basis of equality, friendship, and love. “I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary” (v. 14).
In all our relationships, may we seek to preserve harmony and principle in the spirit of love.
Father in heaven, in all our relationships, give us grace and wisdom to be wise leaders, parents, and friends.
Leaders who serve will serve as good leaders.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 03, 2016
A Bondservant of Jesus
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… —Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, “…for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.
Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ….”
The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.
One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 03, 2016
No Conquest Without Risk - #7779
Excuse me, but I don't expect to be inspired when I eat at McDonald's. Fed, but not inspired. But recently there was a little inspiration with my burger and fries. There was this striking poster on the wall. It showed two mountain climbers near the peak of this Alpine mountain, straining to reach the top. But it was the inscription that impressed me most. "Conquest without risk is a triumph without glory." That's pretty good.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft,and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Conquest Without Risk."
That doesn't just apply to reaching the top of a mountain. In fact, it pretty much describes everything worth doing in life. No risk, no meaningful conquest – a triumph without glory. Low risk – low return. High risk – high return. It's a principle that defines spiritual greatness or spiritual mediocrity.
In Numbers 13, the conquest was not a mountain; it was the taking of the Promised Land that God had promised. Of course, it was currently inhabited by fierce people who, of course, didn't plan to hand it over. And whether or not they would ever experience all God had for them depended on whether or not they would trust Him enough to take some big risks. Now whether or not you experience all God has for you may depend on that same thing.
Twelve scouts had explored the land of Canaan, and they reported back on the fabulous beauty and bounty they found there. But ten of those scouts chose to focus on the risks, two on the Lord who had promised them this land. It boiled down to an exchange like this, recorded in our word for today from the Word of God in Numbers 13, beginning with verse 30.
"Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, 'We should go up and take possession of the land for we certainly can do it.' But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are.' And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, 'The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people there are of great size...we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.'"
You probably know the result. The people followed the lead of the ten scouts who said, "The risks are too great." And they never saw the Promised Land. They chose what was safe, and they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They could have had wonderful; instead, they lived and died in the wilderness. Many of God's children over the years have made that same tragic miscalculation. And they have lived that same tragic result.
Right now your Lord may be asking you to follow Him into something risky. To obey Him is going to mean taking a financial risk, or a geographical risk, a social risk, doing something that's way beyond your comfort zone. In fact, serious obedience usually involves risk. But the great danger is not in obeying God's "risky" leading; it is in not obeying because you won't risk it. You'll miss the top of the mountain. You'll miss the best that God has for you. You'll miss the promised land.
Almost always, God's will will take you out of your comfort zone. If you're addicted to your comfort zone, you're almost sure to miss God's best.
Maybe you're all settled in at your little base camp at the bottom of the mountain. You're safe, but you'll never see the view from the top if you stay where you've always been. You can dare to risk if you know your security is never in your situation-it's in your Savior, and He's everywhere you go. Like the old hymn says, "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go"-even if He's leading you where it just doesn't look very safe.
The conquest, the triumph, the glory of living for Christ is for those who are willing to risk.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Romans 9:16-33, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: EVERYONE CAN DO SOMETHING
The day was special. Jesus was in town. The people asked him to read the scripture and he accepted. He read: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). Jesus had a target audience. The poor…the brokenhearted. This is my mission statement, Jesus declared.
The Nazareth Manifesto. Shouldn’t it be ours, as well? Shouldn’t it look something like this: Let the church act on behalf of the poor and the broken-hearted. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. The ultimate solution to poverty is found in the compassion of God’s people. Poverty is not the lack of charity but the lack of justice. Righteous anger would do a world of good.
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 9:16-33
Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.
19 Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.
Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Read: Genesis 3:1–7
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
INSIGHT:
In Genesis 3, the serpent twists what God has said to Adam and Eve about the fruit in the garden. Rather than directly challenge what God has said, the serpent exaggerates the claim by asking if God commanded no eating from any tree (v. 1). This distortion on the part of the serpent elicits a similar response from Eve. Instead of responding with God’s own words (see the example of Jesus’s confrontation with Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4), Eve adds to His words. After rightly correcting that it is only from the tree in the middle of the garden that they may not eat, she adds the prohibition that they may not “touch” the tree (Gen. 3:3).
Watchful and Alert
By Lawrence Darmani
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith. 1 Corinthians 16:13
My desk sits close to a window that opens into our neighborhood. From that vantage point I’m privileged to watch birds perch on the trees nearby. Some come to the window to eat insects trapped in the screen.
The birds check their immediate surroundings for any danger, listening attentively as they look about them. Only when they are satisfied that there is no danger do they settle down to feed. Even then, they pause every few seconds to scan the area.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
The vigilance these birds demonstrate reminds me that the Bible teaches us to practice vigilance as Christians. Our world is full of temptations, and we need to remain constantly alert and not forget about the dangers. Like Adam and Eve, we easily get entangled in attractions that make the things of this world seem “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3:6).
“Be on your guard,” Paul admonished, “stand firm in the faith” (1 Cor. 16:13). And Peter cautioned, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
As we work for our own daily bread, are we alert to what could start consuming us? Are we watching for any hint of self-confidence or willfulness that could leave us wishing we had trusted our God?
Lord, keep us from the secret sins and selfish reactions we’re so naturally inclined toward. By Your grace, turn our temptations into moments of growth in Christlikeness.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments. —John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an “If,” meaning, “You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so.” “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Luke 9:23). In other words, “To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me.” Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God’s redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in Jesus Christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts Jesus Christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes. The Highest Good, 544 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
God's Little Signs of His Something Big - #7778
I have some great memories of ministering in South Africa some years ago. Got to reach some lost young people and their parents, and train youth leaders to reach young people as well. My schedule was really intense, but our Field Director and I managed to sneak away for a couple of hours in a wild game park. And the Lord of all those African creatures was really good to us, because He sent us zebras and rhinos and hippos, and many more of God's African best.
But our most unforgettable moment began when our driver said, "Whoa, that's fresh! Keep your eyes open for an elephant." Her "that's fresh", referred to a broken branch she saw in the middle of the little road we were on. Now, the staff member I was with and I were a little skeptical, but not for long. As we rounded a bend, there he was – a big old elephant lumbering down the road ahead of us. We followed behind him for a while and then we watched with ringside seats as he stepped off into a little pond, watered himself and sprayed himself. It was amazing! See, our driver saw just this little sign and knew that something really impressive was coming up!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Little Signs of His Something Big."
Now, God may very well be doing something big on the trail just ahead of you. You can't see it yet, but it's important to be able to see the little signs of "God's something big." That's part of what faith is all about.
Elijah had prayed that God would show His power in Israel by sending a three-year drought. In our word for today in 1 Kings 18, beginning in verse 42, we see why the Bible presents him as a man whose prayer was "powerful and effective" (James 5:16). Now he's praying for the drought to end. It says, "Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 'Go and look toward the sea,' he told his servant. And he went up and looked. 'There is nothing there,' he said. Seven times Elijah said, 'Go back.' The seventh time the servant reported, 'A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea.' So Elijah said, 'Go and tell Ahab (the king), 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.'" It hadn't rained for three years, but Elijah saw that little cloud and he said, "It's coming!"
Elijah kind of reminds me of our guide and driver there in that African game park. His eyes are wide open, looking for and expecting some early sign of the major work God was about to do. We saw a branch, and the one with the trained eye said, "Get ready for an elephant." Elijah's servant saw a little cloud, and Elijah, with his trained eye for God at work, said, "Get ready for a deluge."
So often, we are so focused on the "elephant" we're praying for that we miss the little branch in the road. We want that big thing from God – sometimes so much, that we miss the little things He is doing on the way to the big thing. Great faith includes the ability to look for and recognize the trail of God in your life; to be able to track the signs of what God is doing.
So I'd encourage you to open your eyes today for the wonderful things God is already doing around you – the little cloud that will enlarge your faith to expect the big rain, the little buds that will fuel your faith to expect the glory of spring. This winter will end.
A lot of times we are unnecessarily discouraged and disheartened because we don't see the tracks of God that are all over our day. I call them "God sightings". That's why praise is so important. A heart that is a praising heart is always looking around for God at work and regularly sending up praise. It may not be very large or not very dramatic, but there's God again, working in your life.
In Psalm 5:3, David says, "In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." The test of whether you have really trusted God in your prayer is whether or not you are expectant after you say "amen".
So right now, right where you are, there are little signs of God at work; the "branch" that says the "elephant" is ahead. Before God shows you the big things up ahead, He wants you to see Him in the little things that are right in front of you!
The day was special. Jesus was in town. The people asked him to read the scripture and he accepted. He read: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). Jesus had a target audience. The poor…the brokenhearted. This is my mission statement, Jesus declared.
The Nazareth Manifesto. Shouldn’t it be ours, as well? Shouldn’t it look something like this: Let the church act on behalf of the poor and the broken-hearted. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. The ultimate solution to poverty is found in the compassion of God’s people. Poverty is not the lack of charity but the lack of justice. Righteous anger would do a world of good.
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 9:16-33
Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.
19 Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.
Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Read: Genesis 3:1–7
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
INSIGHT:
In Genesis 3, the serpent twists what God has said to Adam and Eve about the fruit in the garden. Rather than directly challenge what God has said, the serpent exaggerates the claim by asking if God commanded no eating from any tree (v. 1). This distortion on the part of the serpent elicits a similar response from Eve. Instead of responding with God’s own words (see the example of Jesus’s confrontation with Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4), Eve adds to His words. After rightly correcting that it is only from the tree in the middle of the garden that they may not eat, she adds the prohibition that they may not “touch” the tree (Gen. 3:3).
Watchful and Alert
By Lawrence Darmani
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith. 1 Corinthians 16:13
My desk sits close to a window that opens into our neighborhood. From that vantage point I’m privileged to watch birds perch on the trees nearby. Some come to the window to eat insects trapped in the screen.
The birds check their immediate surroundings for any danger, listening attentively as they look about them. Only when they are satisfied that there is no danger do they settle down to feed. Even then, they pause every few seconds to scan the area.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
The vigilance these birds demonstrate reminds me that the Bible teaches us to practice vigilance as Christians. Our world is full of temptations, and we need to remain constantly alert and not forget about the dangers. Like Adam and Eve, we easily get entangled in attractions that make the things of this world seem “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3:6).
“Be on your guard,” Paul admonished, “stand firm in the faith” (1 Cor. 16:13). And Peter cautioned, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
As we work for our own daily bread, are we alert to what could start consuming us? Are we watching for any hint of self-confidence or willfulness that could leave us wishing we had trusted our God?
Lord, keep us from the secret sins and selfish reactions we’re so naturally inclined toward. By Your grace, turn our temptations into moments of growth in Christlikeness.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments. —John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an “If,” meaning, “You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so.” “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Luke 9:23). In other words, “To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me.” Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God’s redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in Jesus Christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts Jesus Christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes. The Highest Good, 544 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
God's Little Signs of His Something Big - #7778
I have some great memories of ministering in South Africa some years ago. Got to reach some lost young people and their parents, and train youth leaders to reach young people as well. My schedule was really intense, but our Field Director and I managed to sneak away for a couple of hours in a wild game park. And the Lord of all those African creatures was really good to us, because He sent us zebras and rhinos and hippos, and many more of God's African best.
But our most unforgettable moment began when our driver said, "Whoa, that's fresh! Keep your eyes open for an elephant." Her "that's fresh", referred to a broken branch she saw in the middle of the little road we were on. Now, the staff member I was with and I were a little skeptical, but not for long. As we rounded a bend, there he was – a big old elephant lumbering down the road ahead of us. We followed behind him for a while and then we watched with ringside seats as he stepped off into a little pond, watered himself and sprayed himself. It was amazing! See, our driver saw just this little sign and knew that something really impressive was coming up!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Little Signs of His Something Big."
Now, God may very well be doing something big on the trail just ahead of you. You can't see it yet, but it's important to be able to see the little signs of "God's something big." That's part of what faith is all about.
Elijah had prayed that God would show His power in Israel by sending a three-year drought. In our word for today in 1 Kings 18, beginning in verse 42, we see why the Bible presents him as a man whose prayer was "powerful and effective" (James 5:16). Now he's praying for the drought to end. It says, "Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 'Go and look toward the sea,' he told his servant. And he went up and looked. 'There is nothing there,' he said. Seven times Elijah said, 'Go back.' The seventh time the servant reported, 'A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea.' So Elijah said, 'Go and tell Ahab (the king), 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.'" It hadn't rained for three years, but Elijah saw that little cloud and he said, "It's coming!"
Elijah kind of reminds me of our guide and driver there in that African game park. His eyes are wide open, looking for and expecting some early sign of the major work God was about to do. We saw a branch, and the one with the trained eye said, "Get ready for an elephant." Elijah's servant saw a little cloud, and Elijah, with his trained eye for God at work, said, "Get ready for a deluge."
So often, we are so focused on the "elephant" we're praying for that we miss the little branch in the road. We want that big thing from God – sometimes so much, that we miss the little things He is doing on the way to the big thing. Great faith includes the ability to look for and recognize the trail of God in your life; to be able to track the signs of what God is doing.
So I'd encourage you to open your eyes today for the wonderful things God is already doing around you – the little cloud that will enlarge your faith to expect the big rain, the little buds that will fuel your faith to expect the glory of spring. This winter will end.
A lot of times we are unnecessarily discouraged and disheartened because we don't see the tracks of God that are all over our day. I call them "God sightings". That's why praise is so important. A heart that is a praising heart is always looking around for God at work and regularly sending up praise. It may not be very large or not very dramatic, but there's God again, working in your life.
In Psalm 5:3, David says, "In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." The test of whether you have really trusted God in your prayer is whether or not you are expectant after you say "amen".
So right now, right where you are, there are little signs of God at work; the "branch" that says the "elephant" is ahead. Before God shows you the big things up ahead, He wants you to see Him in the little things that are right in front of you!
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