Colossians 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Next Door Savior

In the aftermath of 9/11, a group of religious leaders was invited to come to Washington and pray with President Bush. The group was well frocked and well known. You might wonder if I felt out of place. The only time I wear a robe is when I step out of the shower. When it came my turn to meet George W. Bush, I added, "And, Mr. President, I was raised in Andrews, Texas, a half-hour drive from your hometown." He smiled that lopsided smile and let his accent drawl ever so slightly. "Why, I know your town. I've walked those streets. I've even played your golf course."
It was nice to know the president knew my home.  How much nicer to know the same about God! Yes, he rules the universe. Yes, he has walked your streets. He's still the next door Savior. Jesus-the One above all powers! Jesus-the One who knows your home? You bet he is!
From Next Door Savior

Colossians 3

He Is Your Life

1-2 So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

3-4 Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

5-8 And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

9-11 Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

12-14 So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

15-17 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

18 Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

19 Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don’t take advantage of them.

20 Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.

21 Parents, don’t come down too hard on your children or you’ll crush their spirits.

22-25 Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Sunday, January 29, 2017

Read: John 8:48–59 

I Am Who I Am
48 The Jews then said, “That clinches it. We were right all along when we called you a Samaritan and said you were crazy—demon-possessed!”

49-51 Jesus said, “I’m not crazy. I simply honor my Father, while you dishonor me. I am not trying to get anything for myself. God intends something gloriously grand here and is making the decisions that will bring it about. I say this with absolute confidence. If you practice what I’m telling you, you’ll never have to look death in the face.”

52-53 At this point the Jews said, “Now we know you’re crazy. Abraham died. The prophets died. And you show up saying, ‘If you practice what I’m telling you, you’ll never have to face death, not even a taste.’ Are you greater than Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you think you are!”

54-56 Jesus said, “If I turned the spotlight on myself, it wouldn’t amount to anything. But my Father, the same One you say is your Father, put me here at this time and place of splendor. You haven’t recognized him in this. But I have. If I, in false modesty, said I didn’t know what was going on, I would be as much of a liar as you are. But I do know, and I am doing what he says. Abraham—your ‘father’—with jubilant faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered.”

57 The Jews said, “You’re not even fifty years old—and Abraham saw you?”

58 “Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.”

59 That did it—pushed them over the edge. They picked up rocks to throw at him. But Jesus slipped away, getting out of the Temple.

INSIGHT:
When the Lord Jesus declared, “Before Abraham was born, I am,” in John 8:58, He was merely borrowing the unique title used of God in Exodus 3:14 (I am). What is meant by the title “I Am”? God is the self-existent and only supreme Being. If God is perpetually and permanently present, He can definitively declare, “I will be with you” (Ex. 3:12). God is not a deist—a do-nothing deity who is retired from all activity. He did not “wind up” the world like a huge watch only to let it run on its own. God is sovereign over all creation and lovingly cares for all He has made.

Timeless Savior
By Bill Crowder

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” John 8:58

Jeralean Talley, born May 23, 1899, Montrose, GA

Jeralean Talley died in June 2015 as the world’s oldest living person—116 years of age. In 1995, the city of Jerusalem celebrated its 3,000th birthday. One hundred sixteen is old for a person, and 3,000 is old for a city, but there are trees that grow even older. A bristlecone pine in California’s White Mountains has been determined to be older than 4,800 years. That precedes the patriarch Abraham by 800 years!

Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, White Mountains, California

Jesus, when challenged by the Jewish religious leaders about His identity, also claimed to pre-date Abraham. “Very truly I tell you,” He said, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58). His bold assertion shocked those who were confronting Him, and they sought to stone Him. They knew He wasn’t referring to a chronological age but was actually claiming to be eternal by taking the ancient name of God, “I am” (see Ex. 3:14). But as a member of the Trinity, He could make that claim legitimately.

Because of His sacrifice, we will spend eternity with Him.
In John 17:3, Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The timeless One entered into time so we could live forever. He accomplished that mission by dying in our place and rising again. Because of His sacrifice, we anticipate a future not bound by time, where we will spend eternity with Him. He is the timeless one.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine; but God, who called me here below, will be forever mine.  John Newton

Learn more about the life to come at discoveryseries.org/q1205.

Christ holds all things together. Colossians 1:17

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, January 29, 2017
How Could Someone Be So Ignorant!

Who are You, Lord? —Acts 26:15
    
“The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand…” (Isaiah 8:11). There is no escape when our Lord speaks. He always comes using His authority and taking hold of our understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has, you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you. God speaks in the language you know best— not through your ears, but through your circumstances.

God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. We say, “I know that this is what I should do” — and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by our defense of Him. We push His claims in the spirit of the devil; our words sound all right, but the spirit is that of an enemy. “He…rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of’ ” (Luke 9:55). The spirit of our Lord in His followers is described in 1 Corinthians 13.

Have I been persecuting Jesus by an eager determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty, yet have hurt Him in the process, I can be sure that this was not my duty. My way will not be to foster a meek and quiet spirit, only the spirit of self-satisfaction. We presume that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord— “I delight to do Your will, O my God…” (Psalm 40:8).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ.  The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L

Jeremiah 19, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: In Our Place
Suppose you were to stand on a stage while a film of every secret and selfish moment of your life was projected on the screen behind you? Would you not scream for the heavens to have mercy? And would you not feel just a fraction of what Christ felt on the cross? The icy displeasure of a sin-hating God?
The Bible says Christ carried all our sins in his body. See Christ on the cross? That’s a gossiper hanging there. See Jesus? Embezzler….liar…bigot. Hold it, Max! Don’t you lump Christ with those evildoers. I didn’t. HE did. More than place his name in the same sentence, he placed himself in their place. And yours! With hands nailed open, he invited God, Treat me as you would them.  And God did. “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” (Matthew 27:46). Why did Christ scream those words? It’s simple–so you will never have to!
From Next Door Savior

Jeremiah 19

Smashing the Clay Pot

 1-2 God said to me, “Go, buy a clay pot. Then get a few leaders from the people and a few of the leading priests and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom, just outside the Potsherd Gate, and preach there what I tell you.

3-5 “Say, ‘Listen to God’s Word, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem! This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. I’m about to bring doom crashing down on this place. Oh, and will ears ever ring! Doom—because they’ve walked off and left me, and made this place strange by worshiping strange gods, gods never heard of by them, their parents, or the old kings of Judah. Doom—because they have massacred innocent people. Doom—because they’ve built altars to that no-god Baal, and burned their own children alive in the fire as offerings to Baal, an atrocity I never ordered, never so much as hinted at!

6-9 “‘And so it’s payday, and soon’—God’s Decree!—‘this place will no longer be known as Topheth or Valley of Ben-hinnom, but Massacre Meadows. I’m canceling all the plans Judah and Jerusalem had for this place, and I’ll have them killed by their enemies. I’ll stack their dead bodies to be eaten by carrion crows and wild dogs. I’ll turn this city into such a museum of atrocities that anyone coming near will be shocked speechless by the savage brutality. The people will turn into cannibals. Dehumanized by the pressure of the enemy siege, they’ll eat their own children! Yes, they’ll eat one another, family and friends alike.’

10-13 “Say all this, and then smash the pot in front of the men who have come with you. Then say, ‘This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: I’ll smash this people and this city like a man who smashes a clay pot into so many pieces it can never be put together again. They’ll bury bodies here in Topheth until there’s no more room. And the whole city will become a Topheth. The city will be turned by people and kings alike into a center for worshiping the star gods and goddesses, turned into an open grave, the whole city an open grave, stinking like a sewer, like Topheth.’”

14-15 Then Jeremiah left Topheth, where God had sent him to preach the sermon, and took his stand in the court of God’s Temple and said to the people, “This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies to you: ‘Warning! Danger! I’m bringing down on this city and all the surrounding towns the doom that I have pronounced. They’re set in their ways and won’t budge. They refuse to do a thing I say.’”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Saturday, January 28, 2017

Read: Romans 8:31–39

 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

INSIGHT:
Are you as convinced as Paul was that nothing can separate you from the love of God? Paul was raised with a belief that his compliance with Mosaic law gave him acceptance with God. Yet all of that changed when he discovered that the Jesus he hated was the God who loved him. Through a direct encounter with the resurrected Christ, he learned that the love of God is not earned, but accepted as a gift of grace and mercy (Rom. 4:4–5). It comes to us not because of what we have done for Him or others but because of what God in His mercy has done for us.

Always Loved, Always Valued
By Randy Kilgore

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Romans 8:35

We serve a God who loves us more than our work.

Oh, it’s true that God wants us to work to feed our families and to responsibly take care of the world He created. And He expects us to serve the weak, hungry, naked, thirsty, and broken people around us even as we remain alert to those who have not yet responded to the Holy Spirit's tug on their lives.

The reason we exist is to be in fellowship with God.
And yet we serve a God who loves us more than our work.

We must never forget this because there may come a time when our ability to “do for God” is torn from us by health or failure or unforeseen catastrophe. It is in those hours that God wants us to remember that He loves us not for what we do for Him but because of who we are: His children! Once we call on the name of Christ for salvation, nothing—“trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword”—will ever again separate us “from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35, 39).

When all we can do or all we have is taken from us, then all He wants us to do is rest in our identity in Him.

Father, help us never lose sight of the unconditional love You have for us, and let us hold on to that hope when our labor—and the fruit of our labor—are gone.

The reason we exist is to be in fellowship with God

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, January 28, 2017
How Could Someone So Persecute Jesus

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? —Acts 26:14
   
Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of “the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever.

Is the Word of God tremendously penetrating and sharp in me as I hand it on to you, or does my life betray the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the very spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of only one thing— a perfect oneness with the Father. And He tells us, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29). All I do should be based on a perfect oneness with Him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that others may use me, go around me, or completely ignore me, but if I will submit to it for His sake, I will prevent Jesus Christ from being persecuted.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R

Jeremiah 18, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: STRENGTH TO OVERCOME

God’s word to Joshua is God’s word to us. “Be strong and of good courage” (Joshua 1:6). Do not cower before your woes. Take the land God has given you to possess. “And the Lord said to Joshua, “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor” (Joshua 6:2). God did not say, Joshua, take the city. God said, Joshua, receive the city I have taken. Joshua didn’t go forth hoping to win. He knew that God had already won.

The same can be said about you and your challenge. God says, Receive the blessing of my victory. The question is not, will you overcome? It is, when will you overcome? Life will always bring challenges. But God will always give strength to face them.

From God is With You Every Day

Jeremiah 18

To Worship the Big Lie

1-2 God told Jeremiah, “Up on your feet! Go to the potter’s house. When you get there, I’ll tell you what I have to say.”

3-4 So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.

5-10 Then God’s Message came to me: “Can’t I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?” God’s Decree! “Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel. At any moment I may decide to pull up a people or a country by the roots and get rid of them. But if they repent of their wicked lives, I will think twice and start over with them. At another time I might decide to plant a people or country, but if they don’t cooperate and won’t listen to me, I will think again and give up on the plans I had for them.

11 “So, tell the people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem my Message: ‘Danger! I’m shaping doom against you, laying plans against you. Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives.’

12 “But they’ll just say, ‘Why should we? What’s the point? We’ll live just the way we’ve always lived, doom or no doom.’”

13-17 God’s Message:

“Ask around.
    Survey the godless nations.
Has anyone heard the likes of this?
    Virgin Israel has become a slut!
Does snow disappear from the Lebanon peaks?
    Do alpine streams run dry?
But my people have left me
    to worship the Big Lie.
They’ve gotten off the track,
    the old, well-worn trail,
And now bushwhack through underbrush
    in a tangle of roots and vines.
Their land’s going to end up a mess—
    a fool’s memorial to be spit on.
Travelers passing through
    will shake their heads in disbelief.
I’ll scatter my people before their enemies,
    like autumn leaves in a high wind.
On their day of doom, they’ll stare at my back as I walk away,
    catching not so much as a glimpse of my face.”
18 Some of the people said, “Come on, let’s cook up a plot against Jeremiah. We’ll still have the priests to teach us the law, wise counselors to give us advice, and prophets to tell us what God has to say. Come on, let’s discredit him so we don’t have to put up with him any longer.”

19-23 And I said to God:
“God, listen to me!
    Just listen to what my enemies are saying.
Should I get paid evil for good?
    That’s what they’re doing. They’ve made plans to kill me!
Remember all the times I stood up for them before you,
    speaking up for them,
    trying to soften your anger?
But enough! Let their children starve!
    Let them be massacred in battle!
Let their wives be childless and widowed,
    their friends die and their proud young men be killed.
Let cries of panic sound from their homes
    as you surprise them with war parties!
They’re all set to lynch me.
    The noose is practically around my neck!
But you know all this, God.
    You know they’re determined to kill me.
Don’t whitewash their crimes,
    don’t overlook a single sin!
Round the bunch of them up before you.
    Strike while the iron of your anger is hot!”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Friday, January 27, 2017
Read: Exodus 17:8–15

Amalek came and fought Israel at Rephidim. Moses ordered Joshua: “Select some men for us and go out and fight Amalek. Tomorrow I will take my stand on top of the hill holding God’s staff.”

10-13 Joshua did what Moses ordered in order to fight Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. It turned out that whenever Moses raised his hands, Israel was winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, Amalek was winning. But Moses’ hands got tired. So they got a stone and set it under him. He sat on it and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on each side. So his hands remained steady until the sun went down. Joshua defeated Amalek and its army in battle.

14 God said to Moses, “Write this up as a reminder to Joshua, to keep it before him, because I will most certainly wipe the very memory of Amalek off the face of the Earth.”

15-16 Moses built an altar and named it “God My Banner.” He said,

Salute God’s rule!
God at war with Amalek
Always and forever!

INSIGHT:
In Exodus 17, it’s interesting that the task of holding Moses’s hands in the air did not fall only to Moses. Moses needed Aaron and Hur’s aid. It seems that the need for help is part of the point of the story. The entire army and the nation of Israel itself were depending on him. If he had failed—and on his own, this was virtually a guarantee—Israel would have lost the battle and many people would have died. Perhaps the dramatic moment when Moses realized his need for help prepared him for applying this lesson to his life. The leadership of the nation was too much responsibility for him alone. He needed help (see Exodus 18). The battle with the Amalekites reminds us of the reality that we do not, cannot, and need not stand alone.

Unseen Heroes
By Amy Boucher Pye

Aaron and Hur held [Moses’s] hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. Exodus 17:12

Stories in the Bible can make us stop and wonder. For instance, when Moses led God’s people into the Promised Land and the Amalekites attacked, how did he know to go to the top of the hill and hold up God’s staff? (Ex. 17:8–15). We aren’t told, but we learn that when Moses raised his hands, the Israelites would win the battle, and when he lowered them, the Amalekites would win. When Moses got tired, his brother Aaron and another man, Hur, held up Moses’s arms so the Israelites could triumph.

We aren’t told much about Hur, but he played a crucial role at this point in Israel’s history. This reminds us that unseen heroes matter, that supporters and those who encourage leaders play a key and often overlooked role. Leaders may be the ones mentioned in the history books or lauded on social media, but the quiet, faithful witness of those who serve in other ways is not overlooked by the Lord. He sees the person who intercedes daily in prayer for friends and family. He sees the woman who puts away the chairs each Sunday in church. He sees the neighbor who reaches out with a word of encouragement.

Dear Father, thank You for creating me and gifting me in my own unique way.
God is using us, even if our task feels insignificant. And may we notice and thank any unseen heroes who help us.

Dear Father, thank You for creating me and gifting me in my own unique way. Help me to serve You and others faithfully and to appreciate those You have sent to help me.

Unseen heroes are always seen by God.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, January 27, 2017
Look Again and Think

Do not worry about your life… —Matthew 6:25

A warning which needs to be repeated is that “the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches,” and the lust for other things, will choke out the life of God in us (Matthew 13:22). We are never free from the recurring waves of this invasion. If the frontline of attack is not about clothes and food, it may be about money or the lack of money; or friends or lack of friends; or the line may be drawn over difficult circumstances. It is one steady invasion, and these things will come in like a flood, unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the banner against it.

“I say to you, do not worry about your life….” Our Lord says to be careful only about one thing— our relationship to Him. But our common sense shouts loudly and says, “That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, and I must consider what I am going to eat and drink.” Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing yourself to think that He says this while not understanding your circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things to the point where they become the primary concern of our life. Whenever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first.

“Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). How much trouble has begun to threaten you today? What kind of mean little demons have been looking into your life and saying, “What are your plans for next month— or next summer?” Jesus tells us not to worry about any of these things. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the “much more” of your heavenly Father (Matthew 6:30).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Both nations and individuals have tried Christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure. The Love of God—The Making of a Christian, 680 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, January 27, 2017

Living Very Dangerously - #7840

Every winter we hear the stories, we see the pictures of avalanches. We have done a lot of work in Alaska, and I took special note of an avalanche that happened at Alaska's Turnagain Pass. The mountain slopes had danger written all over them that day – eight feet of new snow had fallen on this older, packed-down snow, a warm sun had been beating down all day, and there were avalanche warnings. But that didn't stop some snowmobilers from powering up this 2,000 foot high mountain to see who could go the highest. There was an even more sobering warning of the danger they were in. Twenty minutes before the major avalanche there was a smaller one in a nearby gully. But some of the snowmobilers just kept going.

When the big avalanche hit, a mile-wide wall of snow roared down that mountain. An onlooker's videotape shows massive slabs of snow breaking loose and sliding down the mountain in a roiling, powdery cloud with at least four snowmobilers – mere specks – being swallowed up. At least four people died that day. And none of them had to.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living Very Dangerously."

You say to yourself, "If only they had listened to the warnings." I wonder if that's what God says every time someone goes into eternity unprepared. The Bible makes it clear He wants us to go to heaven when we die, to be with Him forever, to experience His awesome love forever. But the Bible also makes it clear that many won't make it to heaven, not because they weren't good enough, but in God's own words, "because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (John 3:18). Because they've heard God's warnings about sin and its death penalty in hell, but like those stubborn snowmobilers in Alaska, they've ignored the warnings.

Our word for today from the Word of God in Hebrews 2:3, really bottom lines what's at stake here. God says, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation." Salvation. That's rescue. That's what I got the day that someone came to rescue me from drowning in Lake Michigan. I was ten years old. That's the reason I'm around today. Someone came and rescued me. It's what a person receives when a firefighter brings them out of a burning building. It's salvation. Rescue from dying.

God says that's what Jesus dying on the cross is all about. He was paying the price for all the sinning you and I have ever done so He can come and rescue us forever. But like me in that lake or the person in the burning building, if we resist the rescuer, we'll die.

God warns us here about ignoring His salvation, and I think that's how most people end up in hell instead of heaven. Not because they out-and-out reject Jesus; they just ignore Jesus and all of God's warnings about our need of Him. Maybe that's where you are. You're just too busy to think about eternity right now or you're having too much fun. You think you're religious and you'll make it on your own goodness, or you think you know Jesus because you know a lot about Jesus. But for one reason or another you are ignoring the Savior. You are ignoring God's warnings.

And this is one more warning from God. It may be that for someone listening today this might be the last warning. But God is saying, "Don't keep going this way! You are headed for an eternity without hope, without love, without Me." This is just too important to ignore any longer. You are risking the eternal judgment of Almighty God; judgment which God's Son took on Him on the cross for you.

Please listen to Jesus' knocking on your heart-door. Listen to the warning of God. Tell Jesus you're trusting Him today to do what only He can do-to rescue you from your sin and its' eternal penalty.

Our website actually is there; I've actually put things there that would help you this very day, in this very hour, to be sure you belong to Jesus and you are ready for eternity whenever it comes. Go to ANewStory.com.

The avalanche of God will sweep away all those who ignore His warning, who ignore His Son. Please, don't gamble your eternity one more day.

Colossians 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: BUT GOD CAN

When you feel helpless, where can you turn? I suggest you turn to one of Jesus’ most intriguing teachings about prayer!

Luke tells the story of a persistent neighbor looking to borrow bread at midnight. Imagine it’s you ringing the doorbell.  The door opens. “What are you doing here?” he asks. You answer, “A friend of mine has arrived for a visit, and I’ve nothing for him to eat.”

Finally he takes you to his pantry. And, as a result, your surprise guest doesn’t have to go to bed hungry. All because you spoke up on behalf of someone else. This is intercessory prayer at its purest. This prayer gets God’s attention. If your cranky and disgruntled neighbor will help you out, how much more will God do?

From God is With You Every Day

Colossians 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Thursday, January 26, 2017

Read: Romans 7:14–25

 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

INSIGHT:
Although we are saved by grace, we often struggle to live up to our position as children of God. However, we can turn to Christ and find His sufficient help and grace to move beyond our worst selves and to stand in Him (vv. 24–25). How does it give you confidence to know that God is still at work in your life?

All Too Human
By Tim Gustafson

The trouble is with me, for I am all too human. Romans 7:14 NLT

British writer Evelyn Waugh wielded his words in a way that accentuated his character flaws. Eventually the novelist converted to Christianity, yet he still struggled. One day a woman asked him, “Mr. Waugh, how can you behave as you do and still call yourself a Christian?” He replied, “Madam, I may be as bad as you say. But believe me, were it not for my religion, I would scarcely be a human being.”

Waugh was waging the internal battle the apostle Paul describes: “I want to do what is right, but I can’t” (Rom. 7:18 nlt). He also says, “The trouble is not with the law . . . [It] is with me, for I am all too human” (v. 14 nlt). He further explains, “In my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me . . . . Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (vv. 22–24). And then the exultant answer: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25).

Teach us to rely on Your Holy Spirit. Make us more like Your Son each day.
When we come in faith to Christ, admitting our wrongdoing and need of a Savior, we immediately become a new creation. But our spiritual formation remains a lifelong journey. As John the disciple observed: “Now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But . . . when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Father, we bring our struggles to You because You know all about them, yet You love us anyway. Teach us to rely on Your Holy Spirit. Make us more like Your Son each day.

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C. S. Lewis

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Look Again and Consecrate

If God so clothes the grass of the field…, will He not much more clothe you…? —Matthew 6:30

A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because we will not be simple. How can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus so that we may understand Him? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, and obeying Him as He brings us the truth of His Word, life will become amazingly simple. Jesus asks us to consider that “if God so clothes the grass of the field…” how “much more” will He clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him? Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed “the cares of this world” to enter in (Matthew 13:22), while forgetting the “much more” of our heavenly Father.

“Look at the birds of the air…” (Matthew 6:26). Their function is to obey the instincts God placed within them, and God watches over them. Jesus said that if you have the right relationship with Him and will obey His Spirit within you, then God will care for your “feathers” too.

“Consider the lilies of the field…” (Matthew 6:28). They grow where they are planted. Many of us refuse to grow where God plants us. Therefore, we don’t take root anywhere. Jesus said if we would obey the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. Did Jesus Christ lie to us? Are we experiencing the “much more” He promised? If we are not, it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us and have cluttered our minds with confusing thoughts and worries. How much time have we wasted asking God senseless questions while we should be absolutely free to concentrate on our service to Him? Consecration is the act of continually separating myself from everything except that which God has appointed me to do. It is not a one-time experience but an ongoing process. Am I continually separating myself and looking to God every day of my life?

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
Thursday, January 26, 2017

Light for Your Next Step - #7839

We were all nestled into our tent for the night as the campground fell silent after a busy day. We had zipped each of the kids into their sleeping bag. I had zipped up the tent and tied it securely. My wife and I were all settled into our sleeping bags for a good night's sleep. And then came the words, "I gotta' go potty." Great! Great! The bathroom was down the trail and over the hill. So, unzip my sleeping bag, unzip boy's sleeping bag, put on shoes, unzip the tent, untie the flaps – oh, and be sure you've got your lantern. Father and son make their way through the real darkness of the campground. They can't see the bathroom, but thanks to the light of their lantern, they make it to their goal in time.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Light for Your Next Step."

Actually, we didn't need to see the whole campground that night. We only needed to see our next step, and our lantern always showed us where that was. If you've got a Bible, you've got a lantern like that – one that will literally light up this day's path.

If you're just reading the Bible to fulfill your Christian duty or to accumulate religious information, you're missing the real power of what you've got in your hand. Those words in your Bible are God's light to show you how to navigate each new day. In Psalm 119:105, our word for today from the Word of God, the Bible says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."

Now, how does that work? Let's look at a helpful example of this path-lighting from God's Word. In Acts 10, Peter gets a message from the Lord. "He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its' four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air." (Now, just a little footnote here; those were animals that Peter's Jewish upbringing had taught him were unclean.) "Then a voice told him, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.' 'Surely not, Lord!' Peter replied. 'I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.' The voice spoke to him a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'" O.K., that's God's word to Peter for that day. Peter's not sure what it means, but he's about to find out.

Peter was also raised to believe that Gentiles were unclean; he was to have no relationship with them. But this day God has prepared the heart of a Roman officer to find Christ, and Peter is called upon to be God's man to make the introductions. God used His Word to prepare Peter for what he was supposed to do that day. Now what has happened to Peter here is what God wants to happen to you and me on a daily basis.

As you read what He's written, He wants to use what you read to contextualize what He knows is coming in your day. So, you pray before you read, "Lord, You know what I need to know for today. Please show it to me." It's good to write down what God says to you in a spiritual journal. Boy, that makes a difference! Because when you do that, it will crystallize His message and it will help you remember it. Then, as your day unfolds, He keeps interpreting this days' events by referring your mind and heart back to what He said to you in His Word. He gives you the light of His Word to outfit you for the experiences of your day.

Listen, it's nothing to hear me say I want to have A Word With You today. It's when God says it that it really matters, and He wants to. He says, "I'm the Lord God, and I want to have A Word With You today." Let that word guide your day.

This makes studying God's Word not boring. It makes it pretty exciting, knowing you are getting God's insight, God's sneak preview, God's preparation for what God knows is coming. That's pretty awesome stuff. Why would you ever head out into life's dark path without the light, without that revealing word from heaven that will show you where to walk!

Jeremiah 17, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: PRAY BOLDLY

When Martin Luther’s co-worker became ill, the reformer prayed boldly for healing. “I besought the Almighty with great vigor,” he wrote.

As John Wesley was crossing the Atlantic Ocean, contrary winds came up. When he learned the winds were knocking the ship off course, he responded in prayer. “Almighty and everlasting God. . .command these winds and these waves that they obey thee, and take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go.”

Boldness in prayer…it’s an uncomfortable thought for many.  Storming heaven with prayers? God invited us to pray as such. Scripture says, “so let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need” (Hebrews 4:16 TLB). Dare to pray boldly!

From God is With You Every Day

Jeremiah 17

The Heart Is Hopelessly Dark and Deceitful

1-2 “Judah’s sin is engraved
    with a steel chisel,
A steel chisel with a diamond point—
    engraved on their granite hearts,
    engraved on the stone corners of their altars.
The evidence against them is plain to see:
    sex-and-religion altars and sacred sex shrines
Anywhere there’s a grove of trees,
    anywhere there’s an available hill.
3-4 “I’ll use your mountains as roadside stands
    for giving away everything you have.
All your ‘things’ will serve as reparations
    for your sins all over the country.
You’ll lose your gift of land,
    The inheritance I gave you.
I’ll make you slaves of your enemies
    in a far-off and strange land.
My anger is hot and blazing and fierce,
    and no one will put it out.”
5-6 God’s Message:

“Cursed is the strong one
    who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
    and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
    out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
    in a land where nothing grows.
7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
    the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
    putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
    never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
    bearing fresh fruit every season.
9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”
11 Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
    in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
    When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!
12-13 From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
    a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
    All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
    who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
    and wind up dead!
14-18 God, pick up the pieces.
    Put me back together again.
    You are my praise!
Listen to how they talk about me:
    “So where’s this ‘Word of God’?
    We’d like to see something happen!”
But it wasn’t my idea to call for Doomsday.
    I never wanted trouble.
You know what I’ve said.
    It’s all out in the open before you.
Don’t add to my troubles.
    Give me some relief!
Let those who harass me be harassed, not me.
    Let them be disgraced, not me.
Bring down upon them the day of doom.
    Lower the boom. Boom!
Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
19-20 God’s Message to me: “Go stand in the People’s Gate, the one used by Judah’s kings as they come and go, and then proceed in turn to all the gates of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘Listen, you kings of Judah, listen to God’s Message—and all you people who go in and out of these gates, you listen!

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

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

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

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Read: Psalm 29
A David Psalm

1-2 Bravo, God, bravo!
    Gods and all angels shout, “Encore!”
In awe before the glory,
    in awe before God’s visible power.
Stand at attention!
    Dress your best to honor him!
3 God thunders across the waters,
Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness—
God, across the flood waters.
4 God’s thunder tympanic,
God’s thunder symphonic.
5 God’s thunder smashes cedars,
God topples the northern cedars.
6 The mountain ranges skip like spring colts,
The high ridges jump like wild kid goats.
7-8 God’s thunder spits fire.
God thunders, the wilderness quakes;
He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.
9 God’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing
A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.
We fall to our knees—we call out, “Glory!”
10 Above the floodwaters is God’s throne
    from which his power flows,
    from which he rules the world.
11 God makes his people strong.
God gives his people peace.

INSIGHT:
Psalm 29:3 says, “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.” The Lord is called “the God of glory”; therefore, in keeping with God’s character, we should “ascribe to the Lord glory” (v. 1). The appropriate reaction to whatever is genuinely awesome is to be awe-filled. What do you remember as being breathtaking or awesome? What response did it evoke?

Thunder and Lightning
By David Roper

The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. Psalm 29:7

Many years ago a friend and I were fishing a series of beaver ponds when it started to rain. We took cover under a nearby grove of quaking aspen, but the rain continued to fall. So we decided to call it a day and run for the truck. I had just opened the door when lightning struck the aspen grove with a thunderous fireball that stripped leaves and bark off the trees, leaving a few limbs smoldering. And then there was silence.

We were shaken and awed.

Grant me Your peace and the strength to walk through this day.
Lightning flashes and thunder rolls across our Idaho valley. I love it—despite my close call. I love the raw power. Voltage! Percussion! Shock and awe! The earth and everything in it trembles and shakes. And then there is peace.

I love lightning and thunder primarily because they are symbols of God's voice (Job 37:4), speaking with stupendous, irresistible power through His Word. “The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning . . . The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace” (Ps. 29:7, 11). He gives strength to endure, to be patient, to be kind, to sit quietly, to get up and go, to do nothing at all.

May the God of peace be with you.

Calm my spirit in the storms, Lord. Grant me Your peace and the strength to walk through this day.

Faith connects our weakness to God's strength.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Leave Room for God

When it pleased God… —Galatians 1:15
   
As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him— to give God “elbow room.” We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”

Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you.  My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Dressed Up Disobedience - #7838

Our son was a lineman when he played high school football. Which meant our son did a lot of weight lifting, which meant he got stronger. But it also meant a lot of eating, which meant he got bigger. I noticed that all the guys playing line had big muscles and big stomachs. When I commented on that, he said, "Dad, we're proud of that. It's lineman's gut!" Funny, I thought it was lineman's fat. Well, after the season, our son lost thirty pounds and his big stomach was all gone. He told me he was really proud that he had lost all that fat. (That was his word.) Of course, I had to say, "Do you remember when you told me it was lineman's gut?" He said, "Uh, Dad – I think we call that a rationalization."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dressed Up Disobedience."

That little word game my son was playing with his overweight situation is a game we try to play with something far uglier and far deadlier. We try to put a cover-up name on sin. There's a disturbing example of that in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Samuel 15:20-23. Israel's King Saul has been commanded by God to carry out God's long-standing word to the brutal Amalekites – to destroy all traces of them. Saul comes back from his attack with livestock that he was supposed to have destroyed.

But he's found a way to dress up his disobedience. He says, "But I did obey the Lord." Really? "Saul said. 'I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God.'" Nice try. God's reaction? "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king."

Now, notice, Saul had disobeyed what God said, but he's wrapping it up in spiritual language. It doesn't cut it with God. The human mind has this devious ability to rationalize, to call fat "lineman's gut", to twist words and logic to fit what I want. Fat by any other name, I would have to tell my son and he ultimately admitted, was still the same thing. Sin by any other name is still sin.

Saul talks about "the Lord's instructions" and things being "devoted to God" and "sacrifices to the Lord". But God calls what Saul is doing "rebellion", "arrogance", and "rejecting the word of the Lord". And God says judgment will fall. Now, you can repackage sin into religious rationalizations, but you cannot fool God. You can come up with rationalizing that's good enough for people, good enough for you, but it's not going to be good enough for God!

Could it be that you've taken what you want and you've quieted your conscience by putting some spiritual name on it? You might be saying, "The Lord is leading me" when the truth is "I want this and I don't want anyone to argue with me." You may be calling it "waiting for the Spirit", but God's calling it laziness. You may call it "love" but God says it's lust or adultery. Your name for it is "conviction", but God calls it stubbornness. You say it's "caring for your family", but God would say it's greed or materialism.

We don't like to deal with our sin. No, we like to disguise it. But if you want to feel clean again inside, if you want to release God's blessings into your life, ask Him, "Lord, where in my life am I calling sin by a nice name? Where am I using religious rhetoric to mask plain old disobedience?" What matters is what God calls what you're doing. If He calls it sin, it's time you called it that, too, and then leave it where it belongs – at the cross of Jesus.

Jeremiah 16, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GRACE FOR THE MESS

The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: grace! Grace. We know the word. The bank gives us a grace period. The seedy politician falls from grace. Grace shares the church parsonage with its cousins: forgiveness, faith, and fellowship. But do we really understand it? We’ve settled for wimpy grace. It politely occupies a phrase in a hymn and fits nicely on a church sign.

Have you been changed by grace? Shaped by grace? Strengthened by grace? Softened by grace? God’s grace has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. Grace comes after you! From insecure to God-secure. From afraid-to-die to ready-to-fly. Grace is the word that calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off!

From God’s With You Every Day

Jeremiah 16
Can Mortals Manufacture Gods?

God’s Message to me:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19-20 God, my strength, my stronghold,
    my safe retreat when trouble descends:
The godless nations will come
    from earth’s four corners, saying,
“Our ancestors lived on lies,
    useless illusions, all smoke.”
Can mortals manufacture gods?
    Their factories turn out no-gods!
21 “Watch closely now. I’m going to teach these wrongheaded people.
    Starting right now, I’m going to teach them
Who I am and what I do,
    teach them the meaning of my name, God—‘I Am.’”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:50–58

50 I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don’t in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very “nature” is to die, so how could they “naturally” end up in the Life kingdom?

51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

INSIGHT:
In the fourth century, John Chrysostom, a church leader who served in Constantinople, reflected the same expectation of the return of Christ we hold today. Imagine living in the ancient city of Constantinople. To the west, barbarian tribes threaten to attack Rome, which for centuries has been the center of the vast Roman Empire. Your city is not currently under attack, but you face the challenges people of the ancient world experienced without the assistance of modern medicine and mechanical devices to make life easier. Yet above it all, Chrysostom preaches to the people about the return of Christ. To ears who listened then, the hope of Christ’s return stirred the soul as it still does today. How does the promise of Christ’s return give you hope and encouragement in your service for Christ?

Not In Vain
By David McCasland

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

A financial advisor I know describes the reality of investing money by saying, “Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.” With almost every decision we make in life there is uncertainty about the outcome. Yet there is one course we can follow where no matter what happens, we know that in the end it will not be a wasted effort.

The apostle Paul spent a year with the followers of Jesus in Corinth, a city known for its moral corruption. After he left, he urged them in a follow-up letter not to be discouraged or feel that their witness for Christ was of no value. He assured them that a day is coming when the Lord will return and even death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:52–55).

Remaining true to Jesus may be difficult, but it is never pointless or wasted.
Remaining true to Jesus may be difficult, discouraging, and even dangerous, but it is never pointless or wasted. As we walk with the Lord and witness to His presence and power, our lives are not in vain! We can be sure of that.

Lord, in these days of uncertainty, we hold fast to Your promise that our labor for You will accomplish Your purpose and be of great value in Your eyes.

Our life and witness for Jesus Christ are not in vain.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
God’s Overpowering Purpose

I have appeared to you for this purpose… —Acts 26:16
   
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go…” (John 15:16).

When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be “disobedient to the heavenly vision” — not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ. Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling “…to make you a minister and a witness….” There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.
The Place of Help

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Sin's Deadly Secret - #7837

You may have seen an actor named Iron Eyes Cody in a lot of roles as an Indian. He used to tell an old legend about a young Indian brave, going through the rites of manhood. As he hiked solo into this beautiful valley, he decided to test himself against that rugged, snow-capped mountain that dominated the valley. When he reached the top, he felt like he was standing on the rim of the world. Then he heard this rustle at his feet. It was a snake. Before he could move, the snake spoke. He said, "I am about to die. It's too cold for me up here and there's no food. Would you put me under your shirt and take me down to the valley?" The young brave refused. He said, "I know your kind! You're a rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you'll bite me and you'll kill me." But the snake said, "No, I promise to treat you differently. If you do this for me, I will not harm you."

Finally, the young man was persuaded, so he tucked the snake under his shirt and carried it down to the valley. But as soon as he laid it on the ground, the snake suddenly coiled, rattled, leaped and bit him on the leg. The young brave could only cry out, "But you promised!" As the snake slithered away, he hissed back his answer, "You knew what I was when you picked me up."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Sin's Deadly Secret."

The story is a legend. But the Indian brave's mistake has been repeated in real life over and over again. In fact, we've all been snake handlers at one time or another. You might be messing with one right now. God wants you to be sure you know exactly what that snake is-and what it will do to you-before you're fatally bitten.

Which takes us to our word for today from the Word of God in James 1:15; it's an anatomy of how sin gets us to pick it up and what the inevitable outcome will be. "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin." Looks good...looks harmless-or at least I think it's worth the risk. First, I want it, then I do it, then I pay for it. It goes on to say, "And sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

See, sin always works the same way-first it fascinates, then it assassinates. Always. The killer snake will always be a killer snake, no matter how harmless it appears or how likely it looks that you'll get away with it. Not a chance. Sin always kills. It kills your self-respect, it kills your reputation, your relationships, your body, peoples' trust in you, your closeness to God. You're not going to get away with it. God says, "Be sure that your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23).

Just like that young man in the story, you're handling something you should have never touched-or, at least, you're tempted to handle it. You might be entertaining thoughts right now that you should have never let in, flirting with something you should be fleeing, making compromises that have brought you to the edge of a spiritual disaster, getting close to someone that you should be getting away from, or you could be harboring hard feelings that you really should have let go of by now.

Down in your soul, you know what it is. It's sin that killed your Savior, sin that God hates, sin that always bites the one who handles it. And just because you can't see any consequences now, don't be fooled. Satan will be sure you're hooked and in a position where your fall will do the most damage-then you'll feel his fangs. This is God's loving warning, "Drop it now, while you can, before the inevitable deadly consequences come."

You can't afford to hold the snake of sin close one day longer. You know what it is when you pick it up. And you know what it will do.

Jeremiah 15, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE SIGH

As God’s story becomes your story, you will make this wonderful discovery: you will graduate from this life into heaven. According to Ephesians 1:10, Jesus’ plan is to “gather together in one all things in Christ.” God will reunite your body with your soul and create something unlike anything you have seen– an eternal body.

Consider Christ’s response to the suffering of a deaf mute. He took him aside from the multitude, the gospel says, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. “Then looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, ‘Be opened'” (Mark 7:33-34). Jesus looked up to heaven and sighed. A sigh of sadness, a deep breath…it won’t be this way for long. Indeed, it won’t.

From God is With You Every Day

Jeremiah 15

1-2 Then God said to me: “Jeremiah, even if Moses and Samuel stood here and made their case, I wouldn’t feel a thing for this people. Get them out of here. Tell them to get lost! And if they ask you, ‘So where do we go?’ tell them God says,

“‘If you’re assigned to die, go and die;
    if assigned to war, go and get killed;
If assigned to starve, go starve;
    if assigned to exile, off to exile you go!’
3-4 “I’ve arranged for four kinds of punishment: death in battle, the corpses dropped off by killer dogs, the rest picked clean by vultures, the bones gnawed by hyenas. They’ll be a sight to see, a sight to shock the whole world—and all because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah and all he did in Jerusalem.

5 “Who do you think will feel sorry for you, Jerusalem?
    Who do you think will waste tears on you?
Who will bother to take the time to ask,
    ‘So, how are things going?’
6-9 “You left me, remember?” God’s Decree.
    “You turned your back and walked out.
So I will grab you and hit you hard.
    I’m tired of letting you off the hook.
I threw you to the four winds
    and let the winds scatter you like leaves.
I made sure you’ll lose everything,
    since nothing makes you change.
I created more widows among you
    than grains of sand on the ocean beaches.
At noon mothers will get the news
    of their sons killed in action.
Sudden anguish for the mothers—
    all those terrible deaths.
A mother of seven falls to the ground,
    gasping for breath,
Robbed of her children in their prime.
    Her sun sets at high noon!
Then I’ll round up any of you that are left alive
    and see that you’re killed by your enemies.”
        God’s Decree.
Giving Everything Away for Nothing
10-11 Unlucky mother—that you had me as a son,
    given the unhappy job of indicting the whole country!
I’ve never hurt or harmed a soul,
    and yet everyone is out to get me.
But, God knows, I’ve done everything I could to help them,
    prayed for them and against their enemies.
I’ve always been on their side, trying to stave off disaster.
    God knows how I’ve tried!
12-14 “O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances
    against the iron juggernaut from the north?
In punishment for your sins, I’m giving away
    everything you’ve got, giving it away for nothing.
I’ll make you slaves to your enemies
    in a strange and far-off land.
My anger is blazing and fierce,
    burning in hot judgment against you.”
15-18 You know where I am, God! Remember what I’m doing here!
    Take my side against my detractors.
Don’t stand back while they ruin me.
    Just look at the abuse I’m taking!
When your words showed up, I ate them—
    swallowed them whole. What a feast!
What delight I took in being yours,
    O God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I never joined the party crowd
    in their laughter and their fun.
Led by you, I went off by myself.
    You’d filled me with indignation. Their sin had me seething.
But why, why this chronic pain,
    this ever worsening wound and no healing in sight?
You’re nothing, God, but a mirage,
    a lovely oasis in the distance—and then nothing!
19-21 This is how God answered me:

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

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, January 23, 2017

Read: Mark 6:7–12
The Twelve

7-8 Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions:

8-9 “Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.

10 “And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.

11 “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”

12-13 Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.

INSIGHT:
We have a wonderful example of a believer in the early church who hosted and supported the workers the apostle John sent out to spread the gospel. Although these visiting itinerant teachers were strangers to him, Gaius provided a place for them to stay, gave them food to eat, and supported their ministry. Commending Gaius for his hospitality and generosity, John wrote, “You are being faithful to God when you care for the traveling teachers who pass through, even though they are strangers to you” (3 John 1:5–6 nlt). We can trust God to supply what we need to serve where He has called us. And we can be partners with others as they teach the truth by praying and providing for them financially and practically.

Lack Nothing
By Poh Fang Chia

God is able to bless you abundantly, so that . . . you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8

Imagine going on a trip without luggage. No basic necessities. No change of clothing. No money or credit cards. Sounds both unwise and terrifying, doesn’t it?

But that’s exactly what Jesus told His twelve disciples to do when He sent them out on their first mission to preach and heal. “Take nothing for the journey except a staff,” said Jesus. “No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt” (Mark 6:8–9).

You are good, Lord, and all You do is good.
Yet later on when Jesus was preparing them for their work after He was gone, He told His disciples, “If you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36).

So, what’s the point here? It’s about trusting God to supply.

When Jesus referred back to that first trip, He asked the disciples, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” And they answered, “Nothing” (v. 35). The disciples had everything they needed to carry out what God had called them to do. He was able to supply them with the power to do His work (Mark 6:7).

Do we trust God to supply our needs? Are we also taking personal responsibility and planning? Let’s have faith that He will give us what we need to carry out His work.

You are good, Lord, and all You do is good. Help us in our endeavors to pray and to plan and to trust You.

God’s will done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, January 23, 2017
Transformed by Beholding

We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image… —2 Corinthians 3:18
   
The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person’s life to become a mirror for others. When the Spirit fills us, we are transformed, and by beholding God we become mirrors. You can always tell when someone has been beholding the glory of the Lord, because your inner spirit senses that he mirrors the Lord’s own character. Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it— something good, but not what is best.

The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God. Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside. The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticize us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it. The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord….”

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The Bible is a relation of facts, the truth of which must be tested. Life may go on all right for a while, when suddenly a bereavement comes, or some crisis; unrequited love or a new love, a disaster, a business collapse, or a shocking sin, and we turn up our Bibles again and God’s word comes straight home, and we say, “Why, I never saw that there before.” Shade of His Hand, 1223 L


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, January 23, 2017

Saying 'Yes' to Love - #7836

It's hard to describe to you how our first grandchild lit up our lives. He had a smile that was really a people-stopper. Yeah, I know I sound like a grandfather. Now, it's a good thing this is radio or you'd have to look at my pictures as well! One day when he was about 8 months old, I came home from the office to a pleasant surprise. My wife and I were babysitting our grandson. There he was, sitting on his Grandma's lap, leaning against her. I knelt down in front of the chair and told him what I tell him often. "I love you." He just looked at me, without changing his expression. I repeated it again – no response. Then two more times. "I love you." Suddenly he smiled, his arms started reaching, and his whole body leaned forward for me to hold him. And I did.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Saying 'Yes' to Love."

I kept telling my grandson I loved him. No response. And then finally, he reached for me. That scene has been repeated over and over again – millions of times – when God comes close to someone and says, "I love you." And we just don't respond. For you, this might be the day when you finally reach for the One who has loved you so long.

Our word for today from the Word of God, from 1 John 4:19, describes in just eight words how people like you and me finally come to experience the awesome love of God. It says, "We love Him because He first loved us." Well, there's the picture: The God who made you trying to tell you how much He loves you over and over. Actually, showing you how much He loves you. Earlier in this same chapter in the Bible, God says, "This is how God showed His love among us...He sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:9, 10).

God gave us our lives. And the One who rules billions of galaxies is the One who was supposed to call the shots in our lives. But according to what God says, "Each of us (and these are the Bible's words) has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). We've made ourselves God, and we've built a wall between us and the divine love that we were made for. That's why our deep loneliness has never gone away. It's cosmic loneliness. You're lonely for God.

And God's love for you is so great that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to pay for your rebellion and mine. You did the sinning. Jesus did the dying, and it's that kind of love that God has been trying to give you for years. But like my little grandson, maybe you've stayed where you are while your Heavenly Father has been saying, "I love you. I love you."

It's been a long, lonely, turbulent road without that love. And now you are risking an eternity without that love by putting off or ignoring God's forgiveness for your sins. Maybe you've thought God was mad at you, that He's an angry God you could never know or be close to. But if you want to know how God feels about you, look at the cross of Jesus. That was for you!

Haven't you lived long enough without this unloseable, unconditional love that you were made for? This isn't about being religious or some spiritual experience. It's about finally responding to the love of the man who gave His life for you!

One more time, God is leaning in close, calling you by name, and He's whispering, "I love you." But this time is your time to take that love!

You want to do that? You tell Him that right now, "Jesus, you loved me enough to die for me. I will take this life of mine that I've run too long already and I put it into Your hands. I'm pinning all my hopes on You and what you did on the cross for me." Our website is there for you at a moment like this. It's ANewStory.com. Oh, I urge you to go there as soon as you can today.

It's been a one-way love long enough. Reach out your arms for Jesus. His arms have been open for a long, long time, and He will take you in His arms and He will never let you go.

Jeremiah 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Christ-Our Substitute

The first man, Adam, was challenged to remain sinless in a sinless world. Christ, on the other hand, was challenged to remain sinless in a sin-ridden world. Christ dared the devil to climb into the ring. See what you can do to me. And Satan did.  The Son of Heaven was tempted but never failed, struck but never struck down. He succeeded where Adam failed.
Romans 5:18 explains, "Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it." You and I are no match for Satan. Jesus knows this. So He put on our flesh. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. He was victorious for us. Trust his Word! Hang in there!
From Next Door Savior

Jeremiah 10

The Stick Gods

1-5 Listen to the Message that God is sending your way, House of Israel. Listen most carefully:

“Don’t take the godless nations as your models.
    Don’t be impressed by their glamour and glitz,
    no matter how much they’re impressed.
The religion of these peoples
    is nothing but smoke.
An idol is nothing but a tree chopped down,
    then shaped by a woodsman’s ax.
They trim it with tinsel and balls,
    use hammer and nails to keep it upright.
It’s like a scarecrow in a cabbage patch—can’t talk!
    Dead wood that has to be carried—can’t walk!
Don’t be impressed by such stuff.
    It’s useless for either good or evil.”
6-9 All this is nothing compared to you, O God.
    You’re wondrously great, famously great.
Who can fail to be impressed by you, King of the nations?
    It’s your very nature to be worshiped!
Look far and wide among the elite of the nations.
    The best they can come up with is nothing compared to you.
Stupidly, they line them up—a lineup of sticks,
    good for nothing but making smoke.
Gilded with silver foil from Tarshish,
    covered with gold from Uphaz,
Hung with violet and purple fabrics—
    no matter how fancy the sticks, they’re still sticks.
10 But God is the real thing—
    the living God, the eternal King.
When he’s angry, Earth shakes.
    Yes, and the godless nations quake.
11-15 “Tell them this, ‘The stick gods
    who made nothing, neither sky nor earth,
Will come to nothing
    on the earth and under the sky.’”
But it is God whose power made the earth,
    whose wisdom gave shape to the world,
    who crafted the cosmos.
He thunders, and rain pours down.
    He sends the clouds soaring.
He embellishes the storm with lightnings,
    launches wind from his warehouse.
Stick-god worshipers looking mighty foolish,
    god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods!
Their gods are frauds—dead sticks,
    deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.
    When the fires of judgment come, they’ll be ashes.
16 But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing.
    He put the whole universe together
And pays special attention to Israel.
    His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
17-18 Grab your bags,
    all you who are under attack.
God has given notice:
    “Attention! I’m evicting
Everyone who lives here,
    And right now—yes, right now!
I’m going to press them to the limit,
    squeeze the life right out of them.”
19-20 But it’s a black day for me!
    Hopelessly wounded,
I said, “Why, oh why
    did I think I could bear it?”
My house is ruined—
    the roof caved in.
Our children are gone—
    we’ll never see them again.
No one left to help in rebuilding,
    no one to make a new start!
21 It’s because our leaders are stupid.
    They never asked God for counsel,
And so nothing worked right.
    The people are scattered all over.
22 But listen! Something’s coming!
    A big commotion from the northern borders!
Judah’s towns about to be smashed,
    left to all the stray dogs and cats!
23-25 I know, God, that mere mortals
    can’t run their own lives,
That men and women
    don’t have what it takes to take charge of life.
So correct us, God, as you see best.
    Don’t lose your temper. That would be the end of us.
Vent your anger on the godless nations,
    who refuse to acknowledge you,
And on the people
    who won’t pray to you—
The very ones who’ve made hash out of Jacob,
    yes, made hash
And devoured him whole,
    people and pastures alike.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Sunday, January 22, 2017

Read: 2 Corinthians 4:4–15

3-4 If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention. All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.

5-6 Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.

7-12 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

13-15 We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!

God’s Face

By Philip Yancey

For God . . . made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

Much of my career as a writer has revolved around the problem of pain. I return again and again to the same questions, as if fingering an old wound that never quite heals. I hear from readers of my books, and their anguished stories give human faces to my doubts. I remember a youth pastor calling me after he had learned that his wife and baby daughter were dying of AIDS because of a tainted blood transfusion. “How can I talk to my youth group about a loving God?” he asked.

I have learned to not even attempt an answer to these “why” questions. Why did the youth pastor’s wife happen to get the one tainted bottle of blood? Why does a tornado hit one town and skip over another? Why do prayers for physical healing go unanswered?

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. 2 Corinthians 4:5
One question, however, no longer gnaws at me as it once did: “Does God care?” I know of only one way to answer that question, and the answer is Jesus. In Jesus, God gave us a face. If you wonder how God feels about the suffering on this groaning planet, look at that face.

“Does God care?” His Son’s death on our behalf, which will ultimately destroy all pain, sorrow, suffering, and death for eternity, answers that question. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

God’s love for us is as expansive as the open arms of Christ on the cross.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Am I Looking To God?

Look to Me, and be saved… —Isaiah 45:22
   
Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says, “Look to Me, and be saved….” The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult. Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere. The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focused on Jesus Christ. “Look to Me….”

Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians’ lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. This is not salvation— it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, “Look to Me and you are saved,” not “You will be saved someday.” We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, “Look to Me, and be saved….” Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.

Wake yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him. “Look to Me….” Salvation is yours the moment you look.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

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