Max Lucado Daily: THE WHITE FLAG OF THE HEART
Maybe your past isn’t much to brag about. So do you rise above the past and make a difference? Or do you remain controlled by the past and make excuses? Many choose the latter. Lean closely and you will hear them say, If only… If only I’d been born somewhere else… If only I’d been treated fairly…”
If only… The white flag of the heart. Maybe you have every right to use those words. For you to find an ancestor worth imitating, you’d have to flip way back in your family album. If that’s the case, let me show you were to turn. Put down the scrapbook and pick up your Bible. Go to John’s gospel and read Jesus’ words: “Human life comes from human parents, but spiritual life comes from the Spirit” (John 3:6). God is willing to give you what your family did not!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 14
A Perfect Offering
1-2 I saw—it took my breath away!—the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, 144,000 standing there with him, his Name and the Name of his Father inscribed on their foreheads. And I heard a voice out of Heaven, the sound like a cataract, like the crash of thunder.
2-5 And then I heard music, harp music and the harpists singing a new song before the Throne and the Four Animals and the Elders. Only the 144,000 could learn to sing the song. They were bought from earth, lived without compromise, virgin-fresh before God. Wherever the Lamb went, they followed. They were bought from humankind, firstfruits of the harvest for God and the Lamb. Not a false word in their mouths. A perfect offering.
Voices from Heaven
6-7 I saw another Angel soaring in Middle-Heaven. He had an Eternal Message to preach to all who were still on earth, every nation and tribe, every tongue and people. He preached in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory! His hour of judgment has come! Worship the Maker of Heaven and earth, salt sea and fresh water!”
8 A second Angel followed, calling out, “Ruined, ruined, Great Babylon ruined! She made all the nations drunk on the wine of her whoring!”
9-11 A third Angel followed, shouting, warning, “If anyone worships the Beast and its image and takes the mark on forehead or hand, that person will drink the wine of God’s wrath, prepared unmixed in his chalice of anger, and suffer torment from fire and brimstone in the presence of Holy Angels, in the presence of the Lamb. Smoke from their torment will rise age after age. No respite for those who worship the Beast and its image, who take the mark of its name.”
12 Meanwhile, the saints stand passionately patient, keeping God’s commands, staying faithful to Jesus.
13 I heard a voice out of Heaven, “Write this: Blessed are those who die in the Master from now on; how blessed to die that way!”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “and blessed rest from their hard, hard work. None of what they’ve done is wasted; God blesses them for it all in the end.”
Harvest Time
14-16 I looked up, I caught my breath!—a white cloud and one like the Son of Man sitting on it. He wore a gold crown and held a sharp sickle. Another Angel came out of the Temple, shouting to the Cloud-Enthroned, “Swing your sickle and reap. It’s harvest time. Earth’s harvest is ripe for reaping.” The Cloud-Enthroned gave a mighty sweep of his sickle, began harvesting earth in a stroke.
17-18 Then another Angel came out of the Temple in Heaven. He also had a sharp sickle. Yet another Angel, the one in charge of tending the fire, came from the Altar. He thundered to the Angel who held the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle. Harvest earth’s vineyard. The grapes are bursting with ripeness.”
19-20 The Angel swung his sickle, harvested earth’s vintage, and heaved it into the winepress, the giant winepress of God’s wrath. The winepress was outside the City. As the vintage was trodden, blood poured from the winepress as high as a horse’s bridle, a river of blood for two hundred miles.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 18, 2017
Read: Psalm 100
A Thanksgiving Psalm
1-2 On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn’t make him.
We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
INSIGHT:
The book of Psalms is commonly known as the hymnbook of ancient Israel. But the opening line of Psalm 100 takes this beautiful hymn out of the sanctuary of Israel and places it in the mouths of everyone: “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.” Since this is written to “all the earth,” what follows applies to all of us.
Because God is the Creator of all, He is also the Father of all. We all belong to Him; we are the “sheep of his pasture” (v. 3). We are all called to give Him thanks and praise, even though believers may be the only ones who answer this call. We are commissioned to help those who do not recognize God and His faithfulness to “enter his gates” (v. 4).
Who can you invite into His “gates”? How can you show and tell them about God’s goodness and enduring love? How can you thank Him for His faithfulness to you?
For more on the book of Psalms read, Together With God at dhp.org/TogetherWithGod. J.R. Hudberg
You’re an Original
By David H. Roper
Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. Psalm 100:3
Each of us is an original from God’s hand. There are no self-made men or women. No one ever became talented, buffed, or bright all by himself or herself. God made each of us all by Himself. He thought of us and formed us out of His unspeakable love.
God made your body, mind, and soul. And He isn’t done with you; He is still making you. His single-minded purpose is our maturity: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). God is making you braver, stronger, purer, more peaceful, more loving, less selfish—the kind of person you’ve perhaps always wanted to be.
Spiritual growth occurs when faith is cultivated.
“[God’s] unfailing love continues forever and his faithfulness continues to each generation” (Ps. 100:5 nlt). God has always loved you (“forever” goes both ways), and He will be faithful to you to the end.
You’ve been given a love that lasts forever and a God who will never give up on you. That’s a good reason to have joy and to “come before him with joyful songs”! (v. 2).
If you can't carry a tune, just give Him a shout-out: “Shout for joy to the Lord” (v. 1).
I’m grateful, Father, that You are at work in me. I find it difficult to change and I wonder sometimes how or if I ever will. Yet I know that You are continuing Your work in me and as I look back I will see the growth You are producing. Thank You!
Spiritual growth occurs when faith is cultivated.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 18, 2017
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have…” (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. Facing Reality, 34 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 18, 2017
The Princess in Your Mirror - #7985
When you see how cute our granddaughter is, it's hard to believe she's actually related to me. But she really is our little princess. I started calling my daughter "Princess" when she was just a baby, and I've never stopped. But I can't help calling our granddaughter that, as well, and when she was little she loved princesses. In fact, she had a princess skirt and top and tiara that she liked to wear around the house sometimes. She looked like Cinderella at the ball. When she'd answer the phone, I'd say, "Hi, Princess." And sometimes she'd say, "I'm not a princess!" Then, I have been told, she actually ran the phone like a scanner over the jeans and the shirt that she was wearing. When I asked her why she was not a princess, she let me know her clear-cut reason, "I'm not wearing my princess clothes."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Princess in Your Mirror."
I always tell my granddaughter, "Honey, I don't care what you're wearing. You're always my princess!" Believe it or not, that's how God feels about a woman who's listening right now. When your Heavenly Father sees you, He sees His princess.
And your reaction may be just like my granddaughter's, "I'm not a princess!" You don't think you look like a princess. Maybe you've been treated like anything but a princess. Or maybe what you do all day doesn't make you feel very special about yourself. You've been settling for so much less than you were created for because you don't realize how much you matter to God. But God is still saying, "However you look, however you've been treated, however insignificant you feel, you're always My princess!"
Hard to believe? Listen to our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 6, beginning with verse 16. The Bible says, "We are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be My people.' 'Therefore, come out from them and be separate,' says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.'" So God is "the Lord Almighty," the king of all kings. That's what the Bible says. And God says that if you're a woman in His family, you're His daughter. And what do they call the daughter of a king? I seem to remember...it's called a princess!
You are God's handmade, masterpiece creation. In the Bible's words, "fearfully and wonderfully made," (Psalm 139:14). And you are His very expensive purchase. The Bible says that all of us-even though we were created by God and for God-have rebelled against God. We've hijacked our life from Him. We've broken His laws and done it "my way" instead of His way. And that leaves us cut off from the Father that we were made for. Since He gave you your worth in the first place, you'll never really feel how special you are until you get back to your Father. And that's where the very expensive purchase came in. God loved you so much that, in the words of the Bible, "He gave His one and only Son" (John 3:16). He came to die in your place; to pay for the very sin that has cut you off from Him.
When Jesus was dying on the cross, most of His disciples were nowhere to be found. But the women were there, whatever it might cost them. They had found in Jesus the Savior they could trust, the One who made them feel clean and valued and safe. He wants to do that for you, if you'll open your heart to Him and let Him into the life that He paid for with His life. No one has ever loved you like He does. No one ever can.
If you've been living without Christ in your heart and you want to belong to the One who loves you more than anyone...tell Him that right where you are. "Jesus, thank You for dying for the junk of my life. I realize I was made for You. You're the love I've been looking for my whole life and beginning right now, I'm Yours." He said that at your invitation, He will move into your life to make you His forever.
There's all the information you need to make that connection with Jesus once and for all on our website. We have nothing for you to join. Just the scriptures that will lead you right to the heart of Jesus and belonging to Him this very day. Let me invite you to go there – ANewStory.com.
The old fairy tales tell of a prince who comes to rescue the princess. What the Bible says is no fairy tale. The Prince of Heaven came to earth to die to rescue a woman destined to be a princess in God's family. That woman is you.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Esther 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HIS HANDS OPEN FOR YOU
Faith is trusting what the eye cannot see! Eyes see storms. Faith sees Noah’s rainbow. Your eyes see your faults. Your faith sees your Savior. Your eyes see your guilt. Your faith sees His cleansing blood. Your eyes look in the mirror and see a sinner, a failure. But by faith you look in the mirror and see a robed prodigal bearing the ring of grace on your finger, and the kiss of your Father on your face.
But wait a minute, someone asks. How do I know this is true? “God’s power is very great for those who believe,” Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:19-20. “That power is the same as the great strength God used to raise Christ from the dead.” So, the next time you wonder if God can forgive you, read that verse again. The power that raised Christ from the grave is the power that resurrects hope in our hearts.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 8
1-2 That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, archenemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came before the king because Esther had explained their relationship. The king took off his signet ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Esther appointed Mordecai over Haman’s estate.
3-6 Then Esther again spoke to the king, falling at his feet, begging with tears to counter the evil of Haman the Agagite and revoke the plan that he had plotted against the Jews. The king extended his gold scepter to Esther. She got to her feet and stood before the king. She said, “If it please the king and he regards me with favor and thinks this is right, and if he has any affection for me at all, let an order be written that cancels the bulletins authorizing the plan of Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite to annihilate the Jews in all the king’s provinces. How can I stand to see this catastrophe wipe out my people? How can I bear to stand by and watch the massacre of my own relatives?”
7-8 King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew: “I’ve given Haman’s estate to Esther and he’s been hanged on the gallows because he attacked the Jews. So go ahead now and write whatever you decide on behalf of the Jews; then seal it with the signet ring.” (An order written in the king’s name and sealed with his signet ring is irrevocable.)
9 So the king’s secretaries were brought in on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan, and the order regarding the Jews was written word for word as Mordecai dictated and was addressed to the satraps, governors, and officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces in all, to each province in its own script and each people in their own language, including the Jews in their script and language.
10 He wrote under the name of King Xerxes and sealed the order with the royal signet ring; he sent out the bulletins by couriers on horseback, riding the fastest royal steeds bred from the royal stud.
11-13 The king’s order authorized the Jews in every city to arm and defend themselves to the death, killing anyone who threatened them or their women and children, and confiscating for themselves anything owned by their enemies. The day set for this in all King Xerxes’ provinces was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar. The order was posted in public places in each province so everyone could read it, authorizing the Jews to be prepared on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.
14 The couriers, fired up by the king’s order, raced off on their royal horses. At the same time, the order was posted in the palace complex of Susa.
15-17 Mordecai walked out of the king’s presence wearing a royal robe of violet and white, a huge gold crown, and a purple cape of fine linen. The city of Susa exploded with joy. For Jews it was all sunshine and laughter: they celebrated, they were honored. It was that way all over the country, in every province, every city when the king’s bulletin was posted: the Jews took to the streets in celebration, cheering, and feasting. Not only that, but many non-Jews became Jews—now it was dangerous not to be a Jew!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Read: Micah 4:1–5
The Making of God’s People
4 1-4 But when all is said and done,
God’s Temple on the mountain,
Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains,
towering above surrounding hills.
People will stream to it
and many nations set out for it,
Saying, “Come, let’s climb God’s mountain.
Let’s go to the Temple of Jacob’s God.
He will teach us how to live.
We’ll know how to live God’s way.”
True teaching will issue from Zion,
God’s revelation from Jerusalem.
He’ll establish justice in the rabble of nations
and settle disputes in faraway places.
They’ll trade in their swords for shovels,
their spears for rakes and hoes.
Nations will quit fighting each other,
quit learning how to kill one another.
Each man will sit under his own shade tree,
each woman in safety will tend her own garden.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so,
and he means what he says.
5 Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish,
picking and choosing their gods.
But we live honoring God,
and we’re loyal to our God forever and ever.
INSIGHT:
Micah (whose name means “Who is like Jehovah?”) was a prophet for the Southern Kingdom of Judah. His ministry overlapped with that of the prophet Isaiah. Micah calls His people to reflect God’s heart when he says: “Act justly . . . love mercy and . . . walk humbly” with Him (6:8). Micah tells us that God’s heart delights “to show mercy” (7:18). And Micah prophesied, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, . . . out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (5:2).
This promise was realized in the person of Jesus. The timeless God has sent His Son to our rescue—and Micah helped prepare people for His arrival. Bill Crowder
Promise of a Peaceful Home
By Amy Peterson
Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid. Micah 4:4
Sixty-five million. That’s the number of refugees in our world today—people who have had to leave their homes due to conflict and persecution—and it’s higher than it’s ever been. The UN has petitioned leaders to work together in receiving refugees so that every child will get an education, every adult will find meaningful work, and every family will have a home.
The dream of making homes for refugees in crisis reminds me of a promise God made to the nation of Judah when ruthless Assyrian armies threatened their homes. The Lord commissioned the prophet Micah to warn the people that they would lose their temple and their beloved city of Jerusalem. But God also promised a beautiful future beyond the loss.
God promises His children a peaceful home in His kingdom.
A day will come, said Micah, when God will call the peoples of the world to Himself. Violence will end. Weapons of war will become farming tools, and every person who answers God’s call will find a peaceful home and a productive life in His kingdom (4:3–4).
For many in the world today, and maybe for you, a safe home remains more a dream than a reality. But we can rely on God’s ancient promise of a home for people of all nations, even as we wait and work and pray for those peaceful homes to become a reality.
God, thank You for the beautiful promise of a home. Please bring peace to our world, and provide for the needs of all of Your children.
God promises His children a peaceful home in His kingdom.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
…Jesus…said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me." But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself. The Moral Foundations of Life, 728 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Happy Fences - #7984
There's a high fence around my friend Mel's garden. And he's got the most incredible fruit and vegetable garden I've ever seen. When Mel or his wife are at the grocery store, they can pretty much sail right past the produce department-they own a produce department. Their garden produces bumper crops of fresh tomatoes, corn, berries-you name it. I have always enjoyed taking a walk with him through what really feels like "God's little acre." But you don't just stroll from the yard right into the soil of the garden. You see, you have to open a gate and then go in. Every inch of that garden is surrounded by this sturdy fence. Now why does Mel have that big old fence around his garden? I suppose someone might say, "Oh, he just doesn't want anyone in there enjoying it." No. He has a fence there, not to limit your enjoyment of the garden, but to protect your enjoyment of the garden. It's not about keeping people from the beauty. It's about protecting the beauty from the things that could destroy it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Happy Fences".
Part of raising children is putting up some fences...fences they won't always like. But it's important for a child to hear from a parent, not just where the fences are, but why there is a fence. For the same reason my friend has a fence around his garden-not to keep you from something good, but to keep something good. We need to raise our sons and daughters, not just with rules to keep, but with treasures to keep.
That's exactly the approach God takes with His children when He's telling them to stay away from what's wrong. It's "thou shalt not" in the context of not spoiling something very valuable.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in 2 Corinthians 6:14. In this situation, God is telling His children not to be involved in life partnerships with unbelievers...something that may have sounded like just another Christian rule, one more thing you can't do because you're a Christian.
But listen to God's logic-the reason behind the rule. He says, "For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.'" God says, Do you know who you are? You're the temple God lives in. You're the people of God. You belong to the King. You're treasure-you're too valuable to compromise or throw away. So, God concludes, "Therefore come out from them and be separate. Touch no unclean thing."
Then He says, "...You will be My sons and daughters." He's the King. You're His child. So you're a prince or a princess. So live like one! See, it's not just some "no-no's". It's not just fences. It's something too valuable to ruin.
We need to raise our children with that kind of positive morality, not just a list of things they can't do. They need a list of treasures that are too valuable to ruin. They're the reason for the rules. Like their virginity, for example...like that unique love gift that they have to give to their lifetime love. Yes, there's a fence around sex called marriage not to keep us from enjoying it, but to make sure we enjoy it as only those can who have kept it for what-and for who-it was made for.
We need to let our kids know their body is a treasure from God too, and it's too valuable to be devalued with garbage. Your mind is a treasure too important to be poisoned with polluted input. Your reputation is a treasure, too valuable to be compromised or lost. People's trust - that's a treasure - so we're against anything that would cost you people's trust.
Let's be sure we aren't just giving our children rules to keep. They need to have treasures to keep. Yes, there are fences-not to keep you out of life's beautiful gardens, but to keep those gardens beautiful!
Faith is trusting what the eye cannot see! Eyes see storms. Faith sees Noah’s rainbow. Your eyes see your faults. Your faith sees your Savior. Your eyes see your guilt. Your faith sees His cleansing blood. Your eyes look in the mirror and see a sinner, a failure. But by faith you look in the mirror and see a robed prodigal bearing the ring of grace on your finger, and the kiss of your Father on your face.
But wait a minute, someone asks. How do I know this is true? “God’s power is very great for those who believe,” Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:19-20. “That power is the same as the great strength God used to raise Christ from the dead.” So, the next time you wonder if God can forgive you, read that verse again. The power that raised Christ from the grave is the power that resurrects hope in our hearts.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 8
1-2 That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, archenemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came before the king because Esther had explained their relationship. The king took off his signet ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. Esther appointed Mordecai over Haman’s estate.
3-6 Then Esther again spoke to the king, falling at his feet, begging with tears to counter the evil of Haman the Agagite and revoke the plan that he had plotted against the Jews. The king extended his gold scepter to Esther. She got to her feet and stood before the king. She said, “If it please the king and he regards me with favor and thinks this is right, and if he has any affection for me at all, let an order be written that cancels the bulletins authorizing the plan of Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite to annihilate the Jews in all the king’s provinces. How can I stand to see this catastrophe wipe out my people? How can I bear to stand by and watch the massacre of my own relatives?”
7-8 King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew: “I’ve given Haman’s estate to Esther and he’s been hanged on the gallows because he attacked the Jews. So go ahead now and write whatever you decide on behalf of the Jews; then seal it with the signet ring.” (An order written in the king’s name and sealed with his signet ring is irrevocable.)
9 So the king’s secretaries were brought in on the twenty-third day of the third month, the month of Sivan, and the order regarding the Jews was written word for word as Mordecai dictated and was addressed to the satraps, governors, and officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces in all, to each province in its own script and each people in their own language, including the Jews in their script and language.
10 He wrote under the name of King Xerxes and sealed the order with the royal signet ring; he sent out the bulletins by couriers on horseback, riding the fastest royal steeds bred from the royal stud.
11-13 The king’s order authorized the Jews in every city to arm and defend themselves to the death, killing anyone who threatened them or their women and children, and confiscating for themselves anything owned by their enemies. The day set for this in all King Xerxes’ provinces was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar. The order was posted in public places in each province so everyone could read it, authorizing the Jews to be prepared on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies.
14 The couriers, fired up by the king’s order, raced off on their royal horses. At the same time, the order was posted in the palace complex of Susa.
15-17 Mordecai walked out of the king’s presence wearing a royal robe of violet and white, a huge gold crown, and a purple cape of fine linen. The city of Susa exploded with joy. For Jews it was all sunshine and laughter: they celebrated, they were honored. It was that way all over the country, in every province, every city when the king’s bulletin was posted: the Jews took to the streets in celebration, cheering, and feasting. Not only that, but many non-Jews became Jews—now it was dangerous not to be a Jew!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Read: Micah 4:1–5
The Making of God’s People
4 1-4 But when all is said and done,
God’s Temple on the mountain,
Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains,
towering above surrounding hills.
People will stream to it
and many nations set out for it,
Saying, “Come, let’s climb God’s mountain.
Let’s go to the Temple of Jacob’s God.
He will teach us how to live.
We’ll know how to live God’s way.”
True teaching will issue from Zion,
God’s revelation from Jerusalem.
He’ll establish justice in the rabble of nations
and settle disputes in faraway places.
They’ll trade in their swords for shovels,
their spears for rakes and hoes.
Nations will quit fighting each other,
quit learning how to kill one another.
Each man will sit under his own shade tree,
each woman in safety will tend her own garden.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so,
and he means what he says.
5 Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish,
picking and choosing their gods.
But we live honoring God,
and we’re loyal to our God forever and ever.
INSIGHT:
Micah (whose name means “Who is like Jehovah?”) was a prophet for the Southern Kingdom of Judah. His ministry overlapped with that of the prophet Isaiah. Micah calls His people to reflect God’s heart when he says: “Act justly . . . love mercy and . . . walk humbly” with Him (6:8). Micah tells us that God’s heart delights “to show mercy” (7:18). And Micah prophesied, “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, . . . out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times” (5:2).
This promise was realized in the person of Jesus. The timeless God has sent His Son to our rescue—and Micah helped prepare people for His arrival. Bill Crowder
Promise of a Peaceful Home
By Amy Peterson
Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid. Micah 4:4
Sixty-five million. That’s the number of refugees in our world today—people who have had to leave their homes due to conflict and persecution—and it’s higher than it’s ever been. The UN has petitioned leaders to work together in receiving refugees so that every child will get an education, every adult will find meaningful work, and every family will have a home.
The dream of making homes for refugees in crisis reminds me of a promise God made to the nation of Judah when ruthless Assyrian armies threatened their homes. The Lord commissioned the prophet Micah to warn the people that they would lose their temple and their beloved city of Jerusalem. But God also promised a beautiful future beyond the loss.
God promises His children a peaceful home in His kingdom.
A day will come, said Micah, when God will call the peoples of the world to Himself. Violence will end. Weapons of war will become farming tools, and every person who answers God’s call will find a peaceful home and a productive life in His kingdom (4:3–4).
For many in the world today, and maybe for you, a safe home remains more a dream than a reality. But we can rely on God’s ancient promise of a home for people of all nations, even as we wait and work and pray for those peaceful homes to become a reality.
God, thank You for the beautiful promise of a home. Please bring peace to our world, and provide for the needs of all of Your children.
God promises His children a peaceful home in His kingdom.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
…Jesus…said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me." But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself. The Moral Foundations of Life, 728 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Happy Fences - #7984
There's a high fence around my friend Mel's garden. And he's got the most incredible fruit and vegetable garden I've ever seen. When Mel or his wife are at the grocery store, they can pretty much sail right past the produce department-they own a produce department. Their garden produces bumper crops of fresh tomatoes, corn, berries-you name it. I have always enjoyed taking a walk with him through what really feels like "God's little acre." But you don't just stroll from the yard right into the soil of the garden. You see, you have to open a gate and then go in. Every inch of that garden is surrounded by this sturdy fence. Now why does Mel have that big old fence around his garden? I suppose someone might say, "Oh, he just doesn't want anyone in there enjoying it." No. He has a fence there, not to limit your enjoyment of the garden, but to protect your enjoyment of the garden. It's not about keeping people from the beauty. It's about protecting the beauty from the things that could destroy it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Happy Fences".
Part of raising children is putting up some fences...fences they won't always like. But it's important for a child to hear from a parent, not just where the fences are, but why there is a fence. For the same reason my friend has a fence around his garden-not to keep you from something good, but to keep something good. We need to raise our sons and daughters, not just with rules to keep, but with treasures to keep.
That's exactly the approach God takes with His children when He's telling them to stay away from what's wrong. It's "thou shalt not" in the context of not spoiling something very valuable.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in 2 Corinthians 6:14. In this situation, God is telling His children not to be involved in life partnerships with unbelievers...something that may have sounded like just another Christian rule, one more thing you can't do because you're a Christian.
But listen to God's logic-the reason behind the rule. He says, "For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.'" God says, Do you know who you are? You're the temple God lives in. You're the people of God. You belong to the King. You're treasure-you're too valuable to compromise or throw away. So, God concludes, "Therefore come out from them and be separate. Touch no unclean thing."
Then He says, "...You will be My sons and daughters." He's the King. You're His child. So you're a prince or a princess. So live like one! See, it's not just some "no-no's". It's not just fences. It's something too valuable to ruin.
We need to raise our children with that kind of positive morality, not just a list of things they can't do. They need a list of treasures that are too valuable to ruin. They're the reason for the rules. Like their virginity, for example...like that unique love gift that they have to give to their lifetime love. Yes, there's a fence around sex called marriage not to keep us from enjoying it, but to make sure we enjoy it as only those can who have kept it for what-and for who-it was made for.
We need to let our kids know their body is a treasure from God too, and it's too valuable to be devalued with garbage. Your mind is a treasure too important to be poisoned with polluted input. Your reputation is a treasure, too valuable to be compromised or lost. People's trust - that's a treasure - so we're against anything that would cost you people's trust.
Let's be sure we aren't just giving our children rules to keep. They need to have treasures to keep. Yes, there are fences-not to keep you out of life's beautiful gardens, but to keep those gardens beautiful!
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Esther 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD WILL DO WHAT IS RIGHT
If you are rehashing the same hurt every chance you get with anyone who will listen, I have a question. Why are you doing God’s work for him? “Vengeance is mine,” God declared, “I will repay” (Hebrews 10:30 NKJV). To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it. When we strike back we are saying, I know vengeance is yours, God, but I just didn’t think you would punish enough. I thought I’d better take this situation into my own hands.
May I restate the obvious? If vengeance is God’s, then it is not ours. God has not asked us to settle the score or get even. Ever. Forgiveness is not saying the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is fair and he will do what is right. After all, don’t we have enough things to do without trying to do God’s work too?
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 7
1-2 So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther. At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it’s yours.”
3 Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.
4 “We’ve been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn’t even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn’t have been worth bothering the king over.”
5 King Xerxes exploded, “Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!”
6 “An enemy. An adversary. This evil Haman,” said Esther.
Haman was terror-stricken before the king and queen.
7-8 The king, raging, left his wine and stalked out into the palace garden.
Haman stood there pleading with Queen Esther for his life—he could see that the king was finished with him and that he was doomed. As the king came back from the palace garden into the banquet hall, Haman was groveling at the couch on which Esther reclined. The king roared out, “Will he even molest the queen while I’m just around the corner?”
When that word left the king’s mouth, all the blood drained from Haman’s face.
9 Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, spoke up: “Look over there! There’s the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai, who saved the king’s life. It’s right next to Haman’s house—seventy-five feet high!”
The king said, “Hang him on it!”
10 So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king’s hot anger cooled.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Read: Numbers 13:25–14:9
21-25 With that they were on their way. They scouted out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob toward Lebo Hamath. Their route went through the Negev Desert to the town of Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of the giant Anak, lived there. Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. When they arrived at the Eshcol Valley they cut off a branch with a single cluster of grapes—it took two men to carry it—slung on a pole. They also picked some pomegranates and figs. They named the place Eshcol Valley (Grape-Cluster-Valley) because of the huge cluster of grapes they had cut down there. After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home.
26-27 They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told the story of their trip:
27-29 “We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit! The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak. Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan.”
30 Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, “Let’s go up and take the land—now. We can do it.”
31-33 But the others said, “We can’t attack those people; they’re way stronger than we are.” They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, “We scouted out the land from one end to the other—it’s a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers.”
14 1-3 The whole community was in an uproar, wailing all night long. All the People of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community was in on it: “Why didn’t we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness? Why has God brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don’t we just head back to Egypt? And right now!”
4 Soon they were all saying it to one another: “Let’s pick a new leader; let’s head back to Egypt.”
5 Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in front of the entire community, gathered in emergency session.
6-9 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes and addressed the assembled People of Israel: “The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land—very good indeed. If God is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he’ll give it to us. Just don’t rebel against God! And don’t be afraid of those people. Why, we’ll have them for lunch! They have no protection and God is on our side. Don’t be afraid of them!”
Not Fear but Faith
By Amy Boucher Pye
The Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them. Numbers 14:9
“My husband was offered a promotion in another country, but I feared leaving our home, so he reluctantly declined the offer,” my friend shared with me. She explained how apprehension over such a big change kept her from embracing a new adventure, and that she sometimes wondered what they missed in not moving.
The Israelites let their anxieties paralyze them when they were called to inhabit a rich and fertile land that flowed “with milk and honey” (Ex. 33:3). When they heard the reports of the powerful people in large cities (Num. 13:28), they started to fear. The majority of the Israelites rejected the call to enter the land.
Loving Father, may I not let my fear stop me from following You.
But Joshua and Caleb urged them to trust in the Lord, saying, “Do not be afraid of the people in the land” for the “Lord is with us” (14:9). Although the people there appeared large, they could trust the Lord to be with them.
My friend wasn’t commanded to move to another country like the Israelites were, yet she regretted letting fear close off the opportunity. What about you—do you face a fearful situation? If so, know that the Lord is with you and will guide you. With His never-failing love, we can move forward in faith.
Loving Father, may I not let my fear stop me from following You, for I know that You will always love me and will never leave me.
Fear can paralyze but faith propels us to follow God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Does He Know Me?
He calls his own…by name… —John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. “…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus….Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ ” (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. “She turned and said to Him, ‘Rabboni!’ ” (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus— maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, “Unless I see…I will not believe” (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. “Thomas…said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, “Lord…You know that I love You” (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him— a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
What People Catch From You - #7983
I think there was a time when people thought workers were demonstrating loyalty and nobility if they showed up for their job even if they felt sicker than a dog. More and more, people think you're not very smart if you do that! You may be one of those who drags yourself into work no matter how sick you are. You're there, all right, but so are your coughs, your sneezes, and your "cooties." Strangely, over the next few days, one co-worker after another comes down with symptoms that look suspiciously like what you brought to work with you. The poet was right, "no man is an island!" You're contagious!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What People Catch From You."
The truth is we're all contagious even when we're healthy. It's not just physical germs we spread; we spread an attitude wherever we are! And while the process of people around you catching your attitude may be as invisible as the transmission of germs, the results are just as real. They can get "sick" from being around you, or they can actually feel better because they've been around you.
General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in World War II, revealed an important understanding of the leadership that we all exercise when he said this: "Optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction." A husband infects his wife with whatever attitude he brings home-positive or negative. If you're wondering why she's acting in a way you don't like, maybe you should look in the mirror for the answer. A parent spreads their attitude to their children, a boss to his employees, a worker to his or her co-workers, a Christian leader to those who serve with him. A friend infects other friends with the health or the sickness of their attitude.
In 1 Samuel 30, beginning with verse 6, our word for today from the Word of God, we can see a vivid picture-both positive and negative-of how the attitude contagion works. In this case, the sick attitude almost destroyed David's little band of soldiers. But one healthy attitude saved the day and it turned the tide of the battle. While David and his men have been gone, their bitter enemies, the Amalekites, have invaded their camp, captured their families, and plundered their camp. Verse 6 tells us that "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters." You've got bitterness here, blaming, despair-those deadly viruses were spreading from one soldier to another because of the way they responded to this tragedy, to this defeat.
"But," the Bible says, "David found strength in the Lord his God." He spread that strength to his men and he led them in a surprise attack that routed the Amalekites and took back everything the enemy had stolen. When you get your perspective on the situation from God rather than your feelings or the circumstances, you can turn the tide with a winning attitude.
Which leads to the question of the day: "What kind of attitude are you spreading where you are?" Are you spreading joy or discouragement? Are you spreading confidence or fear? Is it encouragement or negativity? Are you leaving a trail of tenderness, or is it harshness? Stress or peace? Do you spread faith or do you spread unbelief? Do you spread prayer or do you spread worry?
You are affecting the people you live with, the people you work with, the people you serve with. You are contagious, whether you realize it or not. Make their hearts lighter, not heavier. Give them reason to hope, reason to believe, not reason to despair. Those in whom the living Christ dwells have no excuse for spreading germs that make people sick in their heart and their soul!
If you are rehashing the same hurt every chance you get with anyone who will listen, I have a question. Why are you doing God’s work for him? “Vengeance is mine,” God declared, “I will repay” (Hebrews 10:30 NKJV). To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it. When we strike back we are saying, I know vengeance is yours, God, but I just didn’t think you would punish enough. I thought I’d better take this situation into my own hands.
May I restate the obvious? If vengeance is God’s, then it is not ours. God has not asked us to settle the score or get even. Ever. Forgiveness is not saying the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is fair and he will do what is right. After all, don’t we have enough things to do without trying to do God’s work too?
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 7
1-2 So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther. At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it’s yours.”
3 Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives.
4 “We’ve been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn’t even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn’t have been worth bothering the king over.”
5 King Xerxes exploded, “Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!”
6 “An enemy. An adversary. This evil Haman,” said Esther.
Haman was terror-stricken before the king and queen.
7-8 The king, raging, left his wine and stalked out into the palace garden.
Haman stood there pleading with Queen Esther for his life—he could see that the king was finished with him and that he was doomed. As the king came back from the palace garden into the banquet hall, Haman was groveling at the couch on which Esther reclined. The king roared out, “Will he even molest the queen while I’m just around the corner?”
When that word left the king’s mouth, all the blood drained from Haman’s face.
9 Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, spoke up: “Look over there! There’s the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai, who saved the king’s life. It’s right next to Haman’s house—seventy-five feet high!”
The king said, “Hang him on it!”
10 So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king’s hot anger cooled.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Read: Numbers 13:25–14:9
21-25 With that they were on their way. They scouted out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob toward Lebo Hamath. Their route went through the Negev Desert to the town of Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, descendants of the giant Anak, lived there. Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. When they arrived at the Eshcol Valley they cut off a branch with a single cluster of grapes—it took two men to carry it—slung on a pole. They also picked some pomegranates and figs. They named the place Eshcol Valley (Grape-Cluster-Valley) because of the huge cluster of grapes they had cut down there. After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home.
26-27 They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told the story of their trip:
27-29 “We went to the land to which you sent us and, oh! It does flow with milk and honey! Just look at this fruit! The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak. Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan.”
30 Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, “Let’s go up and take the land—now. We can do it.”
31-33 But the others said, “We can’t attack those people; they’re way stronger than we are.” They spread scary rumors among the People of Israel. They said, “We scouted out the land from one end to the other—it’s a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw was huge. Why, we even saw the Nephilim giants (the Anak giants come from the Nephilim). Alongside them we felt like grasshoppers. And they looked down on us as if we were grasshoppers.”
14 1-3 The whole community was in an uproar, wailing all night long. All the People of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community was in on it: “Why didn’t we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness? Why has God brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don’t we just head back to Egypt? And right now!”
4 Soon they were all saying it to one another: “Let’s pick a new leader; let’s head back to Egypt.”
5 Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in front of the entire community, gathered in emergency session.
6-9 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, members of the scouting party, ripped their clothes and addressed the assembled People of Israel: “The land we walked through and scouted out is a very good land—very good indeed. If God is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land that flows, as they say, with milk and honey. And he’ll give it to us. Just don’t rebel against God! And don’t be afraid of those people. Why, we’ll have them for lunch! They have no protection and God is on our side. Don’t be afraid of them!”
Not Fear but Faith
By Amy Boucher Pye
The Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them. Numbers 14:9
“My husband was offered a promotion in another country, but I feared leaving our home, so he reluctantly declined the offer,” my friend shared with me. She explained how apprehension over such a big change kept her from embracing a new adventure, and that she sometimes wondered what they missed in not moving.
The Israelites let their anxieties paralyze them when they were called to inhabit a rich and fertile land that flowed “with milk and honey” (Ex. 33:3). When they heard the reports of the powerful people in large cities (Num. 13:28), they started to fear. The majority of the Israelites rejected the call to enter the land.
Loving Father, may I not let my fear stop me from following You.
But Joshua and Caleb urged them to trust in the Lord, saying, “Do not be afraid of the people in the land” for the “Lord is with us” (14:9). Although the people there appeared large, they could trust the Lord to be with them.
My friend wasn’t commanded to move to another country like the Israelites were, yet she regretted letting fear close off the opportunity. What about you—do you face a fearful situation? If so, know that the Lord is with you and will guide you. With His never-failing love, we can move forward in faith.
Loving Father, may I not let my fear stop me from following You, for I know that You will always love me and will never leave me.
Fear can paralyze but faith propels us to follow God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Does He Know Me?
He calls his own…by name… —John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. “…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus….Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ ” (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. “She turned and said to Him, ‘Rabboni!’ ” (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus— maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, “Unless I see…I will not believe” (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. “Thomas…said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, “Lord…You know that I love You” (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him— a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
What People Catch From You - #7983
I think there was a time when people thought workers were demonstrating loyalty and nobility if they showed up for their job even if they felt sicker than a dog. More and more, people think you're not very smart if you do that! You may be one of those who drags yourself into work no matter how sick you are. You're there, all right, but so are your coughs, your sneezes, and your "cooties." Strangely, over the next few days, one co-worker after another comes down with symptoms that look suspiciously like what you brought to work with you. The poet was right, "no man is an island!" You're contagious!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What People Catch From You."
The truth is we're all contagious even when we're healthy. It's not just physical germs we spread; we spread an attitude wherever we are! And while the process of people around you catching your attitude may be as invisible as the transmission of germs, the results are just as real. They can get "sick" from being around you, or they can actually feel better because they've been around you.
General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in World War II, revealed an important understanding of the leadership that we all exercise when he said this: "Optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction." A husband infects his wife with whatever attitude he brings home-positive or negative. If you're wondering why she's acting in a way you don't like, maybe you should look in the mirror for the answer. A parent spreads their attitude to their children, a boss to his employees, a worker to his or her co-workers, a Christian leader to those who serve with him. A friend infects other friends with the health or the sickness of their attitude.
In 1 Samuel 30, beginning with verse 6, our word for today from the Word of God, we can see a vivid picture-both positive and negative-of how the attitude contagion works. In this case, the sick attitude almost destroyed David's little band of soldiers. But one healthy attitude saved the day and it turned the tide of the battle. While David and his men have been gone, their bitter enemies, the Amalekites, have invaded their camp, captured their families, and plundered their camp. Verse 6 tells us that "David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters." You've got bitterness here, blaming, despair-those deadly viruses were spreading from one soldier to another because of the way they responded to this tragedy, to this defeat.
"But," the Bible says, "David found strength in the Lord his God." He spread that strength to his men and he led them in a surprise attack that routed the Amalekites and took back everything the enemy had stolen. When you get your perspective on the situation from God rather than your feelings or the circumstances, you can turn the tide with a winning attitude.
Which leads to the question of the day: "What kind of attitude are you spreading where you are?" Are you spreading joy or discouragement? Are you spreading confidence or fear? Is it encouragement or negativity? Are you leaving a trail of tenderness, or is it harshness? Stress or peace? Do you spread faith or do you spread unbelief? Do you spread prayer or do you spread worry?
You are affecting the people you live with, the people you work with, the people you serve with. You are contagious, whether you realize it or not. Make their hearts lighter, not heavier. Give them reason to hope, reason to believe, not reason to despair. Those in whom the living Christ dwells have no excuse for spreading germs that make people sick in their heart and their soul!
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Esther 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE MASTER MUSICIAN
In his later years Beethoven spent hours playing a broken harpsichord. The instrument was worthless. Keys were missing. Strings stretched. It was out of tune, harsh on the ears. Nonetheless the great pianist would play till tears came down his cheeks. You’d think he was hearing the sublime. He was. He was deaf. Beethoven was hearing the sound the instrument should make, not the one it did make.
Maybe you feel like Beethoven’s harpsichord? Out of tune…inadequate…your service ill-timed or insignificant? Ever wonder what God does when the instrument is broken? How does the Master respond when the keys don’t work? Does he demand a replacement? Or does he patiently tune until he hears the song he longs to hear? If you’ve asked those questions (and who hasn’t), I want you to know that the Master Musician fixes what we can’t and hears music when we don’t! And He loves to hear the music that comes from your life.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 6
That night the king couldn’t sleep. He ordered the record book, the day-by-day journal of events, to be brought and read to him. They came across the story there about the time that Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh—the two royal eunuchs who guarded the entrance and who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.
3 The king asked, “What great honor was given to Mordecai for this?”
“Nothing,” replied the king’s servants who were in attendance. “Nothing has been done for him.”
4 The king said, “Is there anybody out in the court?”
Now Haman had just come into the outer court of the king’s palace to talk to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had built for him.
5 The king’s servants said, “Haman is out there, waiting in the court.”
“Bring him in,” said the king.
6-9 When Haman entered, the king said, “What would be appropriate for the man the king especially wants to honor?”
Haman thought to himself, “He must be talking about honoring me—who else?” So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, do this: Bring a royal robe that the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crown on its head. Then give the robe and the horse to one of the king’s most noble princes. Have him robe the man whom the king especially wants to honor; have the prince lead him on horseback through the city square, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!’”
10 “Go and do it,” the king said to Haman. “Don’t waste another minute. Take the robe and horse and do what you have proposed to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the King’s Gate. Don’t leave out a single detail of your plan.”
11 So Haman took the robe and horse; he robed Mordecai and led him through the city square, proclaiming before him, “This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!”
12-13 Then Mordecai returned to the King’s Gate, but Haman fled to his house, thoroughly mortified, hiding his face. When Haman had finished telling his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his knowledgeable friends who were there and his wife Zeresh said, “If this Mordecai is in fact a Jew, your bad luck has only begun. You don’t stand a chance against him—you’re as good as ruined.”
14 While they were still talking, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman off to the dinner that Esther had prepared.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Read: Psalm 91
1-13 You who sit down in the High God’s presence,
spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow,
Say this: “God, you’re my refuge.
I trust in you and I’m safe!”
That’s right—he rescues you from hidden traps,
shields you from deadly hazards.
His huge outstretched arms protect you—
under them you’re perfectly safe;
his arms fend off all harm.
Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night,
not flying arrows in the day,
Not disease that prowls through the darkness,
not disaster that erupts at high noon.
Even though others succumb all around,
drop like flies right and left,
no harm will even graze you.
You’ll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance,
watch the wicked turn into corpses.
Yes, because God’s your refuge,
the High God your very own home,
Evil can’t get close to you,
harm can’t get through the door.
He ordered his angels
to guard you wherever you go.
If you stumble, they’ll catch you;
their job is to keep you from falling.
You’ll walk unharmed among lions and snakes,
and kick young lions and serpents from the path.
14-16 “If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
“I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life,
give you a long drink of salvation!”
INSIGHT:
Psalm 91 is a beautiful expression of confidence in the Lord’s presence and protection. The writer speaks of both physical protection (from arrows, disease, pestilence, plague) and emotional protection from the evils and disasters happening all around (vv. 5–6). But this psalm is also a conversation. The Lord responds to the faith of those who trust Him by saying, “I will rescue him” (v. 14). J.R. Hudberg
Under His Wings
By Linda Washington
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. Psalm 91:4
When I think of protection, I don’t automatically think of a bird’s feathers. Though a bird’s feathers might seem like a flimsy form of protection, there is more to them than meets the eye.
Bird feathers are an amazing example of God’s design. Feathers have a smooth part and a fluffy part. The smooth part of the feather has stiff barbs with tiny hooks that lock together like the prongs of a zipper. The fluffy part keeps a bird warm. Together both parts of the feather protect the bird from wind and rain. But many baby birds are covered in a fluffy down and their feathers haven’t fully developed. So a mother bird has to cover them in the nest with her own feathers to protect them from wind and rain.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. Psalm 91:4
The image of God “[covering] us with his feathers” in Psalm 91:4 and in other Bible passages (see Ps. 17:8) is one of comfort and protection. The image that comes to mind is a mother bird covering her little ones with her feathers. Like a parent whose arms are a safe place to retreat from a scary storm or a hurt, God’s comforting presence provides safety and protection from life’s emotional storms.
Though we go through trouble and heartache, we can face them without fear as long as our faces are turned toward God. He is our “refuge” (91:2, 4, 9).
Father God, help me trust that You are bigger than any fear I have.
Our Daily Bread welcomes writer Linda Washington! Meet Linda and all our authors at odb.org/all-authors
When fear causes hope to fad
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again. —John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?” is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
“But as many as received Him…” (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
“…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ” (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God’s kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God’s control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin…” (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, “Should a Christian sin?” The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin— it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Why Are You Standing Out in the Cold - #7982
It was one of those winter nights that chills you to the bone – cold temperatures, a brisk north wind, a freezing rain, some snow. Our friends were inside their house, and their horses were inside their barn. Well, actually, three out of four of their horses were inside the barn. Cassie, their Shetland, was standing outside for some strange reason. So as our friends looked out their window, they saw this pitiful scene: one lone horse under a barn light, standing there with the freezing rain and snow pounding down on her, forming ice on her mane. Now, her horse friends were all smart enough to be in their nice warm stalls, but, oh no, not Cassie.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why Are You Standing Out in the Cold."
That horse chose to stand out in the cold – when all the time she could have been in the warm place that had been provided for her. You know in some ways, a lot of people are making that same mistake – maybe you.
In a way, maybe you feel as if you've been standing out in the cold for a long time. There's this loneliness that no relationship has satisfied, this confusion, this gnawing sense of uncertainty and insecurity, this emptiness that never seems to go away no matter what you've filled yourself up with. Emotionally, spiritually, it's as if you're out in the chilling wind and the freezing rain. But you don't have to be. There's a warm place that's been provided for you, but you have got to step inside. In fact, this very day, I believe Jesus Christ himself may be beckoning you to come in where it's warm.
Listen to His invitation. It's our word for today from the Word of God in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." If we're "weary and burdened" it may be because we haven't come to Him. It could be that Jesus has been asking you to come to Him for a long time but you've never responded. He's been waiting to answer your loneliness with His unloseable love, to turn your confusion into a sense of knowing why you're here and where you're going. He wants to replace that uncertainty with this unshakeable peace, to fill that emptiness in your heart with the relationship with Him that you were made for. But you're still in the cold because you've never really come inside where Jesus is.
There are actually five things you can do with the man who died to pay for your sins. You can just outright reject Jesus. You can ignore Jesus, pushing Him to the margins for other pursuits. You can postpone Jesus – you'll get around to Him someday. You can agree with Jesus – believing everything you've ever been told about Him. Or you can commit yourself completely to Jesus. Four of those five responses end the same place – out in the cold, now and forever. Only one leads to heaven: giving yourself to Jesus. Yes, it's possible to agree with everything about Jesus and yet never have given yourself to Him. It's about commitment, not agreement.
Today, though, He's close to you. He's where you are, and He's whispering, "Come to me...I will give you rest." His love for you, His forgiveness, His peace have gone unclaimed far too long. Today you can begin your relationship with Him by saying, "Jesus, you died for me and I'm giving myself to you for now and forever." That's when you receive what He's been waiting to give you all these years. If that's what you want, I would love to help you begin your own love relationship with Jesus. That's why we even set up our website and made sure that's what it's all about. That website is ANewStory.com. And I urge you at your first chance today to get there and use it as a road to make sure that you have begun your relationship with the One who's been trying to get you to come inside to the warmth for a long time.
You've been out in the cold long enough. There's no need for you to be out there any longer. You're so close to the warmth and the safety of belonging to Jesus Christ. Today, won't you come inside?
In his later years Beethoven spent hours playing a broken harpsichord. The instrument was worthless. Keys were missing. Strings stretched. It was out of tune, harsh on the ears. Nonetheless the great pianist would play till tears came down his cheeks. You’d think he was hearing the sublime. He was. He was deaf. Beethoven was hearing the sound the instrument should make, not the one it did make.
Maybe you feel like Beethoven’s harpsichord? Out of tune…inadequate…your service ill-timed or insignificant? Ever wonder what God does when the instrument is broken? How does the Master respond when the keys don’t work? Does he demand a replacement? Or does he patiently tune until he hears the song he longs to hear? If you’ve asked those questions (and who hasn’t), I want you to know that the Master Musician fixes what we can’t and hears music when we don’t! And He loves to hear the music that comes from your life.
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 6
That night the king couldn’t sleep. He ordered the record book, the day-by-day journal of events, to be brought and read to him. They came across the story there about the time that Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh—the two royal eunuchs who guarded the entrance and who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.
3 The king asked, “What great honor was given to Mordecai for this?”
“Nothing,” replied the king’s servants who were in attendance. “Nothing has been done for him.”
4 The king said, “Is there anybody out in the court?”
Now Haman had just come into the outer court of the king’s palace to talk to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows he had built for him.
5 The king’s servants said, “Haman is out there, waiting in the court.”
“Bring him in,” said the king.
6-9 When Haman entered, the king said, “What would be appropriate for the man the king especially wants to honor?”
Haman thought to himself, “He must be talking about honoring me—who else?” So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, do this: Bring a royal robe that the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crown on its head. Then give the robe and the horse to one of the king’s most noble princes. Have him robe the man whom the king especially wants to honor; have the prince lead him on horseback through the city square, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!’”
10 “Go and do it,” the king said to Haman. “Don’t waste another minute. Take the robe and horse and do what you have proposed to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the King’s Gate. Don’t leave out a single detail of your plan.”
11 So Haman took the robe and horse; he robed Mordecai and led him through the city square, proclaiming before him, “This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants to honor!”
12-13 Then Mordecai returned to the King’s Gate, but Haman fled to his house, thoroughly mortified, hiding his face. When Haman had finished telling his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him, his knowledgeable friends who were there and his wife Zeresh said, “If this Mordecai is in fact a Jew, your bad luck has only begun. You don’t stand a chance against him—you’re as good as ruined.”
14 While they were still talking, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman off to the dinner that Esther had prepared.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Read: Psalm 91
1-13 You who sit down in the High God’s presence,
spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow,
Say this: “God, you’re my refuge.
I trust in you and I’m safe!”
That’s right—he rescues you from hidden traps,
shields you from deadly hazards.
His huge outstretched arms protect you—
under them you’re perfectly safe;
his arms fend off all harm.
Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night,
not flying arrows in the day,
Not disease that prowls through the darkness,
not disaster that erupts at high noon.
Even though others succumb all around,
drop like flies right and left,
no harm will even graze you.
You’ll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance,
watch the wicked turn into corpses.
Yes, because God’s your refuge,
the High God your very own home,
Evil can’t get close to you,
harm can’t get through the door.
He ordered his angels
to guard you wherever you go.
If you stumble, they’ll catch you;
their job is to keep you from falling.
You’ll walk unharmed among lions and snakes,
and kick young lions and serpents from the path.
14-16 “If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
“I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life,
give you a long drink of salvation!”
INSIGHT:
Psalm 91 is a beautiful expression of confidence in the Lord’s presence and protection. The writer speaks of both physical protection (from arrows, disease, pestilence, plague) and emotional protection from the evils and disasters happening all around (vv. 5–6). But this psalm is also a conversation. The Lord responds to the faith of those who trust Him by saying, “I will rescue him” (v. 14). J.R. Hudberg
Under His Wings
By Linda Washington
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. Psalm 91:4
When I think of protection, I don’t automatically think of a bird’s feathers. Though a bird’s feathers might seem like a flimsy form of protection, there is more to them than meets the eye.
Bird feathers are an amazing example of God’s design. Feathers have a smooth part and a fluffy part. The smooth part of the feather has stiff barbs with tiny hooks that lock together like the prongs of a zipper. The fluffy part keeps a bird warm. Together both parts of the feather protect the bird from wind and rain. But many baby birds are covered in a fluffy down and their feathers haven’t fully developed. So a mother bird has to cover them in the nest with her own feathers to protect them from wind and rain.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. Psalm 91:4
The image of God “[covering] us with his feathers” in Psalm 91:4 and in other Bible passages (see Ps. 17:8) is one of comfort and protection. The image that comes to mind is a mother bird covering her little ones with her feathers. Like a parent whose arms are a safe place to retreat from a scary storm or a hurt, God’s comforting presence provides safety and protection from life’s emotional storms.
Though we go through trouble and heartache, we can face them without fear as long as our faces are turned toward God. He is our “refuge” (91:2, 4, 9).
Father God, help me trust that You are bigger than any fear I have.
Our Daily Bread welcomes writer Linda Washington! Meet Linda and all our authors at odb.org/all-authors
When fear causes hope to fad
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again. —John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?” is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
“But as many as received Him…” (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
“…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ” (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God’s kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God’s control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin…” (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, “Should a Christian sin?” The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin— it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Why Are You Standing Out in the Cold - #7982
It was one of those winter nights that chills you to the bone – cold temperatures, a brisk north wind, a freezing rain, some snow. Our friends were inside their house, and their horses were inside their barn. Well, actually, three out of four of their horses were inside the barn. Cassie, their Shetland, was standing outside for some strange reason. So as our friends looked out their window, they saw this pitiful scene: one lone horse under a barn light, standing there with the freezing rain and snow pounding down on her, forming ice on her mane. Now, her horse friends were all smart enough to be in their nice warm stalls, but, oh no, not Cassie.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why Are You Standing Out in the Cold."
That horse chose to stand out in the cold – when all the time she could have been in the warm place that had been provided for her. You know in some ways, a lot of people are making that same mistake – maybe you.
In a way, maybe you feel as if you've been standing out in the cold for a long time. There's this loneliness that no relationship has satisfied, this confusion, this gnawing sense of uncertainty and insecurity, this emptiness that never seems to go away no matter what you've filled yourself up with. Emotionally, spiritually, it's as if you're out in the chilling wind and the freezing rain. But you don't have to be. There's a warm place that's been provided for you, but you have got to step inside. In fact, this very day, I believe Jesus Christ himself may be beckoning you to come in where it's warm.
Listen to His invitation. It's our word for today from the Word of God in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." If we're "weary and burdened" it may be because we haven't come to Him. It could be that Jesus has been asking you to come to Him for a long time but you've never responded. He's been waiting to answer your loneliness with His unloseable love, to turn your confusion into a sense of knowing why you're here and where you're going. He wants to replace that uncertainty with this unshakeable peace, to fill that emptiness in your heart with the relationship with Him that you were made for. But you're still in the cold because you've never really come inside where Jesus is.
There are actually five things you can do with the man who died to pay for your sins. You can just outright reject Jesus. You can ignore Jesus, pushing Him to the margins for other pursuits. You can postpone Jesus – you'll get around to Him someday. You can agree with Jesus – believing everything you've ever been told about Him. Or you can commit yourself completely to Jesus. Four of those five responses end the same place – out in the cold, now and forever. Only one leads to heaven: giving yourself to Jesus. Yes, it's possible to agree with everything about Jesus and yet never have given yourself to Him. It's about commitment, not agreement.
Today, though, He's close to you. He's where you are, and He's whispering, "Come to me...I will give you rest." His love for you, His forgiveness, His peace have gone unclaimed far too long. Today you can begin your relationship with Him by saying, "Jesus, you died for me and I'm giving myself to you for now and forever." That's when you receive what He's been waiting to give you all these years. If that's what you want, I would love to help you begin your own love relationship with Jesus. That's why we even set up our website and made sure that's what it's all about. That website is ANewStory.com. And I urge you at your first chance today to get there and use it as a road to make sure that you have begun your relationship with the One who's been trying to get you to come inside to the warmth for a long time.
You've been out in the cold long enough. There's no need for you to be out there any longer. You're so close to the warmth and the safety of belonging to Jesus Christ. Today, won't you come inside?
Monday, August 14, 2017
Revelation 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: WHEN THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH
In the days when I was a missionary in Brazil, I went to visit one of our church leaders. We hadn’t seen him for several Sundays. Friends told me he had inherited three hundred dollars and was constructing, by hand, a one-room house. When he gave me a tour of the project, it took about twenty seconds.
I told him we had missed him and that the church needed him back. He grew quiet and turned and looked at his house. His eyes were moist. “You’re right, Max,” he confessed, “I guess I just got too greedy.” Greedy? I wanted to say, You’re building a hut in a swamp and you call it greed? But he was right. Greed is relative. Greed is not defined by what something costs; it is measured by what it costs you. If anything costs you your family or your faith, the price is too high!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 13
The Beast from the Sea
And the Dragon stood on the shore of the sea. I saw a Beast rising from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads—on each horn a crown, and each head inscribed with a blasphemous name. The Beast I saw looked like a leopard with bear paws and a lion’s mouth. The Dragon turned over its power to it, its throne and great authority.
3-4 One of the Beast’s heads looked as if it had been struck a deathblow, and then healed. The whole earth was agog, gaping at the Beast. They worshiped the Dragon who gave the Beast authority, and they worshiped the Beast, exclaiming, “There’s never been anything like the Beast! No one would dare go to war with the Beast!”
5-8 The Beast had a loud mouth, boastful and blasphemous. It could do anything it wanted for forty-two months. It yelled blasphemies against God, blasphemed his Name, blasphemed his Church, especially those already dwelling with God in Heaven. It was permitted to make war on God’s holy people and conquer them. It held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues and races. Everyone on earth whose name was not written from the world’s foundation in the slaughtered Lamb’s Book of Life will worship the Beast.
9-10 Are you listening to this? They’ve made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God’s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.
The Beast from Under the Ground
11-12 I saw another Beast rising out of the ground. It had two horns like a lamb but sounded like a dragon when it spoke. It was a puppet of the first Beast, made earth and everyone in it worship the first Beast, which had been healed of its deathblow.
13-17 This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.
18 Solve a riddle: Put your heads together and figure out the meaning of the number of the Beast. It’s a human number: 666.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 14, 2017
Read: Matthew 18:1–10
Whoever Becomes Simple Again
At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”
2-5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
6-7 “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.
8-9 “If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.
10 “Watch that you don’t treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don’t you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?
INSIGHT:
Speaking into a context where social status was central, Jesus made the revolutionary claim that true greatness is found through being humble like children (Matt. 18:3–4), who had no status on their own. He further declared that harming a child is a grave sin (vv. 6, 10). His is a kingdom dedicated to uplifting and cherishing the vulnerable (v. 5). Monica Brands
Love for Children
By Bill Crowder
Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children. Matthew 19:14 nlt
Thomas Barnado entered the London Hospital medical school in 1865, dreaming of life as a medical missionary in China. Barnado soon discovered a desperate need in his own front yard—the many homeless children living and dying on the streets of London. Barnado determined to do something about this horrendous situation. Developing homes for destitute children in London’s east end, Barnado rescued some 60,000 boys and girls from poverty and possible early death. Theologian and pastor John Stott said, “Today we might call him the patron saint of street kids.”
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children” (Matt. 19:14 nlt). Imagine the surprise the crowds—and Jesus’s own disciples—must have felt at this declaration. In the ancient world, children had little value and were largely relegated to the margins of life. Yet Jesus welcomed, blessed, and valued children.
James, a New Testament writer, challenged Christ-followers saying, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans . . . in their troubles” (James 1:27 nlt). Today, like those first-century orphans, children of every social strata, ethnicity, and family environment are at risk due to neglect, human trafficking, abuse, drugs, and more. How can we honor the Father who loves us by showing His care for these little ones Jesus welcomes?
See the book A Cup of Cold Water in His Name: 60 Ways to Care for the Needy by Lorie Newman at dhp.org/jd007.html.
Be an expression of the love of Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 14, 2017
The Discipline of the Lord
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. —Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
“…nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 14, 2017
A Big Jolt to Your Heart - #7981
"They had to use the paddles on him." Now that sounds like something we might say about an exasperated parent's response to an out-of-control child. But the paddles we're talking about here were the ones they used on our neighbor when he was rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. His wife said they saved his life by using the "paddles" on him. Actually, what they used was a device called a defibrillator. (You see why most people call them the paddles.) The defibrillator has two paddles that, after they are placed on the patient's chest, generate this strong electric jolt to restart the heart. More and more ambulances are carrying them, more and more emergency medical technicians are being trained to use them, and they are in more and more public places. When the heart stops, something has to be done to get it going again - even if it takes a big jolt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Big Jolt To Your Heart."
Actually, that might be God's prescription for your heart condition right now. Because a heart that was once beating strong spiritually can start slowing down, and even stop beating. Something radical has got to be done to restart a heart for God that is in trouble. That's where God brings out His "paddles" to administer a shock to bring someone back to life.
Now our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. Verse 14 is that classic verse on spiritual revival. Well known. It lays out the steps we need to take to receive the answers to our seemingly unanswered prayers...to make a new beginning...to fix what's broken in our lives. Here's what God says. "If My people, who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
Those are pretty aggressive steps to get back a spiritual life and health that you have lost. What would make us come to the point where we would surrender our self-reliance and our pride, get on our knees, and abandon the sin and compromise we have been tolerating? What makes us come back to life is a jolt from God.
In verse 13, the one right before this great formula for revival, God says this. "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among My people, if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves..." and so on...in other words God says, "I have to wake you up somehow so you will realize what you've lost and you will pay the price to get it back." So He sends the drought, the locusts, the plague - not because He doesn't love you, but because He does! The doctor administers that electric jolt, not because he doesn't care about the patient, but because he does. He knows it's what it will take to bring the patient back to life.
So maybe this explains why you've been having some of the jolts that you've been getting hit with lately. You've been asking, "Why?" and God is answering, "To restart your failing heart." The jolts are God's shocks to get your attention so you will listen to what He's been trying to say to you. You haven't responded to His gentler therapies, so now He has sent these jolts to bring you back.
So you've got the pain...now please get the point. It may be all about you returning to your first love for Jesus...to establishing your daily Jesus-time as the center of your life...maybe He's calling you to a new purity where there's a zero tolerance for sin in your life. In order to reach us, God sends situations - like plagues and droughts - that are totally beyond our power to fix so we will surrender again to the only One who can. Sometimes He allows us to become emotionally isolated so we are shut up alone with Him, to find our identity and our fulfillment totally in Him.
So, if you've been feeling the jolts lately, consider the possibility that God sent them to bring you back to life. He knows your heart for Him has been slowing down, even stopping. And He's not going to let you slip away. Your Father who loves you is sending those jolts to restart your heart.
In the days when I was a missionary in Brazil, I went to visit one of our church leaders. We hadn’t seen him for several Sundays. Friends told me he had inherited three hundred dollars and was constructing, by hand, a one-room house. When he gave me a tour of the project, it took about twenty seconds.
I told him we had missed him and that the church needed him back. He grew quiet and turned and looked at his house. His eyes were moist. “You’re right, Max,” he confessed, “I guess I just got too greedy.” Greedy? I wanted to say, You’re building a hut in a swamp and you call it greed? But he was right. Greed is relative. Greed is not defined by what something costs; it is measured by what it costs you. If anything costs you your family or your faith, the price is too high!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 13
The Beast from the Sea
And the Dragon stood on the shore of the sea. I saw a Beast rising from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads—on each horn a crown, and each head inscribed with a blasphemous name. The Beast I saw looked like a leopard with bear paws and a lion’s mouth. The Dragon turned over its power to it, its throne and great authority.
3-4 One of the Beast’s heads looked as if it had been struck a deathblow, and then healed. The whole earth was agog, gaping at the Beast. They worshiped the Dragon who gave the Beast authority, and they worshiped the Beast, exclaiming, “There’s never been anything like the Beast! No one would dare go to war with the Beast!”
5-8 The Beast had a loud mouth, boastful and blasphemous. It could do anything it wanted for forty-two months. It yelled blasphemies against God, blasphemed his Name, blasphemed his Church, especially those already dwelling with God in Heaven. It was permitted to make war on God’s holy people and conquer them. It held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues and races. Everyone on earth whose name was not written from the world’s foundation in the slaughtered Lamb’s Book of Life will worship the Beast.
9-10 Are you listening to this? They’ve made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God’s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.
The Beast from Under the Ground
11-12 I saw another Beast rising out of the ground. It had two horns like a lamb but sounded like a dragon when it spoke. It was a puppet of the first Beast, made earth and everyone in it worship the first Beast, which had been healed of its deathblow.
13-17 This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.
18 Solve a riddle: Put your heads together and figure out the meaning of the number of the Beast. It’s a human number: 666.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 14, 2017
Read: Matthew 18:1–10
Whoever Becomes Simple Again
At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”
2-5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
6-7 “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.
8-9 “If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.
10 “Watch that you don’t treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don’t you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?
INSIGHT:
Speaking into a context where social status was central, Jesus made the revolutionary claim that true greatness is found through being humble like children (Matt. 18:3–4), who had no status on their own. He further declared that harming a child is a grave sin (vv. 6, 10). His is a kingdom dedicated to uplifting and cherishing the vulnerable (v. 5). Monica Brands
Love for Children
By Bill Crowder
Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children. Matthew 19:14 nlt
Thomas Barnado entered the London Hospital medical school in 1865, dreaming of life as a medical missionary in China. Barnado soon discovered a desperate need in his own front yard—the many homeless children living and dying on the streets of London. Barnado determined to do something about this horrendous situation. Developing homes for destitute children in London’s east end, Barnado rescued some 60,000 boys and girls from poverty and possible early death. Theologian and pastor John Stott said, “Today we might call him the patron saint of street kids.”
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children” (Matt. 19:14 nlt). Imagine the surprise the crowds—and Jesus’s own disciples—must have felt at this declaration. In the ancient world, children had little value and were largely relegated to the margins of life. Yet Jesus welcomed, blessed, and valued children.
James, a New Testament writer, challenged Christ-followers saying, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans . . . in their troubles” (James 1:27 nlt). Today, like those first-century orphans, children of every social strata, ethnicity, and family environment are at risk due to neglect, human trafficking, abuse, drugs, and more. How can we honor the Father who loves us by showing His care for these little ones Jesus welcomes?
See the book A Cup of Cold Water in His Name: 60 Ways to Care for the Needy by Lorie Newman at dhp.org/jd007.html.
Be an expression of the love of Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 14, 2017
The Discipline of the Lord
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. —Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
“…nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 14, 2017
A Big Jolt to Your Heart - #7981
"They had to use the paddles on him." Now that sounds like something we might say about an exasperated parent's response to an out-of-control child. But the paddles we're talking about here were the ones they used on our neighbor when he was rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. His wife said they saved his life by using the "paddles" on him. Actually, what they used was a device called a defibrillator. (You see why most people call them the paddles.) The defibrillator has two paddles that, after they are placed on the patient's chest, generate this strong electric jolt to restart the heart. More and more ambulances are carrying them, more and more emergency medical technicians are being trained to use them, and they are in more and more public places. When the heart stops, something has to be done to get it going again - even if it takes a big jolt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Big Jolt To Your Heart."
Actually, that might be God's prescription for your heart condition right now. Because a heart that was once beating strong spiritually can start slowing down, and even stop beating. Something radical has got to be done to restart a heart for God that is in trouble. That's where God brings out His "paddles" to administer a shock to bring someone back to life.
Now our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. Verse 14 is that classic verse on spiritual revival. Well known. It lays out the steps we need to take to receive the answers to our seemingly unanswered prayers...to make a new beginning...to fix what's broken in our lives. Here's what God says. "If My people, who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
Those are pretty aggressive steps to get back a spiritual life and health that you have lost. What would make us come to the point where we would surrender our self-reliance and our pride, get on our knees, and abandon the sin and compromise we have been tolerating? What makes us come back to life is a jolt from God.
In verse 13, the one right before this great formula for revival, God says this. "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among My people, if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves..." and so on...in other words God says, "I have to wake you up somehow so you will realize what you've lost and you will pay the price to get it back." So He sends the drought, the locusts, the plague - not because He doesn't love you, but because He does! The doctor administers that electric jolt, not because he doesn't care about the patient, but because he does. He knows it's what it will take to bring the patient back to life.
So maybe this explains why you've been having some of the jolts that you've been getting hit with lately. You've been asking, "Why?" and God is answering, "To restart your failing heart." The jolts are God's shocks to get your attention so you will listen to what He's been trying to say to you. You haven't responded to His gentler therapies, so now He has sent these jolts to bring you back.
So you've got the pain...now please get the point. It may be all about you returning to your first love for Jesus...to establishing your daily Jesus-time as the center of your life...maybe He's calling you to a new purity where there's a zero tolerance for sin in your life. In order to reach us, God sends situations - like plagues and droughts - that are totally beyond our power to fix so we will surrender again to the only One who can. Sometimes He allows us to become emotionally isolated so we are shut up alone with Him, to find our identity and our fulfillment totally in Him.
So, if you've been feeling the jolts lately, consider the possibility that God sent them to bring you back to life. He knows your heart for Him has been slowing down, even stopping. And He's not going to let you slip away. Your Father who loves you is sending those jolts to restart your heart.
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Esther 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Who is in Charge?
A day transporting a family from one city to another is closely akin to God transporting us from our home to his. And some of life's stormiest hours occur when the passenger and the driver disagree on what takes place during the trip! Can you imagine the chaos if a parent indulged every child's wishes? Can you imagine the chaos if God indulged each of ours?
I Thessalonians 5:9 says "God has destined us to the full attainment of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." God's overarching desire is that you reach that destiny. His itinerary includes stops that encourage your journey. He frowns on stops that deter you. When his sovereign plan and your earthly plan collide, a decision must be made.
Who is in charge of this journey? If God must choose between your earthly satisfaction and your heavenly salvation, which do you hope he chooses? Me, too!
From In the Eye of the Storm
Esther 5
1-3 Three days later Esther dressed in her royal robes and took up a position in the inner court of the palace in front of the king’s throne room. The king was on his throne facing the entrance. When he noticed Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased to see her; the king extended the gold scepter in his hand. Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. The king asked, “And what’s your desire, Queen Esther? What do you want? Ask and it’s yours—even if it’s half my kingdom!”
4 “If it please the king,” said Esther, “let the king come with Haman to a dinner I’ve prepared for him.”
5-6 “Get Haman at once,” said the king, “so we can go to dinner with Esther.”
So the king and Haman joined Esther at the dinner she had arranged. As they were drinking the wine, the king said, “Now, what is it you want? Half of my kingdom isn’t too much to ask! Just ask.”
7-8 Esther answered, “Here’s what I want. If the king favors me and is pleased to do what I desire and ask, let the king and Haman come again tomorrow to the dinner that I will fix for them. Then I’ll give a straight answer to the king’s question.”
9-13 Haman left the palace that day happy, beaming. And then he saw Mordecai sitting at the King’s Gate ignoring him, oblivious to him. Haman was furious with Mordecai. But he held himself in and went on home. He got his friends together with his wife Zeresh and started bragging about how much money he had, his many sons, all the times the king had honored him, and his promotion to the highest position in the government. “On top of all that,” Haman continued, “Queen Esther invited me to a private dinner she gave for the king, just the three of us. And she’s invited me to another one tomorrow. But I can’t enjoy any of it when I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s Gate.”
14 His wife Zeresh and all his friends said, “Build a gallows seventy-five feet high. First thing in the morning speak with the king; get him to order Mordecai hanged on it. Then happily go with the king to dinner.”
Haman liked that. He had the gallows built.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Read: Habakkuk 3:16–19
God, is it River you’re mad at?
Angry at old River?
Were you raging at Sea when you rode
horse and chariot through to salvation?
You unfurled your bow
and let loose a volley of arrows.
You split Earth with rivers.
Mountains saw what was coming.
They twisted in pain.
Flood Waters poured in.
Ocean roared and reared huge waves.
Sun and Moon stopped in their tracks.
Your flashing arrows stopped them,
your lightning-strike spears impaled them.
Angry, you stomped through Earth.
Furious, you crushed the godless nations.
You were out to save your people,
to save your specially chosen people.
You beat the stuffing
out of King Wicked,
Stripped him naked
from head to toe,
Set his severed head on his own spear
and blew away his army.
Scattered they were to the four winds—
and ended up food for the sharks!
You galloped through the Sea on your horses,
racing on the crest of the waves.
When I heard it, my stomach did flips.
I stammered and stuttered.
My bones turned to water.
I staggered and stumbled.
I sit back and wait for Doomsday
to descend on our attackers.
17-19 Though the cherry trees don’t blossom
and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten
and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless
and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.
Counting on God’s Rule to prevail,
I take heart and gain strength.
I run like a deer.
I feel like I’m king of the mountain!
(For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)
INSIGHT:
The prophet Habakkuk gives us an inspiring example of someone who argued with God yet came to the point of trusting Him regardless of what happened. He came to believe that God would eventually unmask the idols of the world (literally “nothings”). Habakkuk could not see that the Creator was going to bring judgment against the idolatrous violence in Israel and Babylon. He could not know how God’s Son would ultimately come in a human body to bear the consequence of the world’s rebellion and loss of understanding.
How does the story of Habakkuk encourage you as you face your own challenges of faith? Mart DeHaan
From Fear to Faith
By Karen Wolfe |
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Habakkuk 3:19
The doctor’s words landed in her heart with a thud. It was cancer. Her world stopped as she thought of her husband and children. They had prayed diligently, hoping for a different outcome. What would they do? With tears streaming down her face, she said softly, “God, this is beyond our control. Please be our strength.”
What do we do when the prognosis is devastating, when our circumstances are beyond our control? Where do we turn when the outlook seems hopeless?
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Habakkuk 3:19
The prophet Habakkuk’s situation was out of his control, and the fear that he felt terrified him. The coming judgment would be catastrophic (Hab. 3:16–17). Yet, in the midst of the impending chaos, Habakkuk made a choice to live by his faith (2:4) and rejoice in God (3:18). He did not place his confidence and faith in his circumstances, ability, or resources, but in the goodness and greatness of God. His trust in God compelled him to proclaim: “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (v. 19).
When we are faced with difficult circumstances—sickness, family crisis, financial trouble—we, too, have only to place our faith and trust in God. He is with us in everything we face.
Dear God, I thank You that I can always turn to You. When I am faced with the difficulties of life, I can put my trust in You. Thank you that You are my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1
When faced with difficult circumstances we can trust God to be our strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 13, 2017
“Do Not Quench the Spirit”
Do not quench the Spirit. —1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
A day transporting a family from one city to another is closely akin to God transporting us from our home to his. And some of life's stormiest hours occur when the passenger and the driver disagree on what takes place during the trip! Can you imagine the chaos if a parent indulged every child's wishes? Can you imagine the chaos if God indulged each of ours?
I Thessalonians 5:9 says "God has destined us to the full attainment of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." God's overarching desire is that you reach that destiny. His itinerary includes stops that encourage your journey. He frowns on stops that deter you. When his sovereign plan and your earthly plan collide, a decision must be made.
Who is in charge of this journey? If God must choose between your earthly satisfaction and your heavenly salvation, which do you hope he chooses? Me, too!
From In the Eye of the Storm
Esther 5
1-3 Three days later Esther dressed in her royal robes and took up a position in the inner court of the palace in front of the king’s throne room. The king was on his throne facing the entrance. When he noticed Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased to see her; the king extended the gold scepter in his hand. Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. The king asked, “And what’s your desire, Queen Esther? What do you want? Ask and it’s yours—even if it’s half my kingdom!”
4 “If it please the king,” said Esther, “let the king come with Haman to a dinner I’ve prepared for him.”
5-6 “Get Haman at once,” said the king, “so we can go to dinner with Esther.”
So the king and Haman joined Esther at the dinner she had arranged. As they were drinking the wine, the king said, “Now, what is it you want? Half of my kingdom isn’t too much to ask! Just ask.”
7-8 Esther answered, “Here’s what I want. If the king favors me and is pleased to do what I desire and ask, let the king and Haman come again tomorrow to the dinner that I will fix for them. Then I’ll give a straight answer to the king’s question.”
9-13 Haman left the palace that day happy, beaming. And then he saw Mordecai sitting at the King’s Gate ignoring him, oblivious to him. Haman was furious with Mordecai. But he held himself in and went on home. He got his friends together with his wife Zeresh and started bragging about how much money he had, his many sons, all the times the king had honored him, and his promotion to the highest position in the government. “On top of all that,” Haman continued, “Queen Esther invited me to a private dinner she gave for the king, just the three of us. And she’s invited me to another one tomorrow. But I can’t enjoy any of it when I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s Gate.”
14 His wife Zeresh and all his friends said, “Build a gallows seventy-five feet high. First thing in the morning speak with the king; get him to order Mordecai hanged on it. Then happily go with the king to dinner.”
Haman liked that. He had the gallows built.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Read: Habakkuk 3:16–19
God, is it River you’re mad at?
Angry at old River?
Were you raging at Sea when you rode
horse and chariot through to salvation?
You unfurled your bow
and let loose a volley of arrows.
You split Earth with rivers.
Mountains saw what was coming.
They twisted in pain.
Flood Waters poured in.
Ocean roared and reared huge waves.
Sun and Moon stopped in their tracks.
Your flashing arrows stopped them,
your lightning-strike spears impaled them.
Angry, you stomped through Earth.
Furious, you crushed the godless nations.
You were out to save your people,
to save your specially chosen people.
You beat the stuffing
out of King Wicked,
Stripped him naked
from head to toe,
Set his severed head on his own spear
and blew away his army.
Scattered they were to the four winds—
and ended up food for the sharks!
You galloped through the Sea on your horses,
racing on the crest of the waves.
When I heard it, my stomach did flips.
I stammered and stuttered.
My bones turned to water.
I staggered and stumbled.
I sit back and wait for Doomsday
to descend on our attackers.
17-19 Though the cherry trees don’t blossom
and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten
and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless
and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God.
Counting on God’s Rule to prevail,
I take heart and gain strength.
I run like a deer.
I feel like I’m king of the mountain!
(For congregational use, with a full orchestra.)
INSIGHT:
The prophet Habakkuk gives us an inspiring example of someone who argued with God yet came to the point of trusting Him regardless of what happened. He came to believe that God would eventually unmask the idols of the world (literally “nothings”). Habakkuk could not see that the Creator was going to bring judgment against the idolatrous violence in Israel and Babylon. He could not know how God’s Son would ultimately come in a human body to bear the consequence of the world’s rebellion and loss of understanding.
How does the story of Habakkuk encourage you as you face your own challenges of faith? Mart DeHaan
From Fear to Faith
By Karen Wolfe |
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Habakkuk 3:19
The doctor’s words landed in her heart with a thud. It was cancer. Her world stopped as she thought of her husband and children. They had prayed diligently, hoping for a different outcome. What would they do? With tears streaming down her face, she said softly, “God, this is beyond our control. Please be our strength.”
What do we do when the prognosis is devastating, when our circumstances are beyond our control? Where do we turn when the outlook seems hopeless?
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Habakkuk 3:19
The prophet Habakkuk’s situation was out of his control, and the fear that he felt terrified him. The coming judgment would be catastrophic (Hab. 3:16–17). Yet, in the midst of the impending chaos, Habakkuk made a choice to live by his faith (2:4) and rejoice in God (3:18). He did not place his confidence and faith in his circumstances, ability, or resources, but in the goodness and greatness of God. His trust in God compelled him to proclaim: “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights” (v. 19).
When we are faced with difficult circumstances—sickness, family crisis, financial trouble—we, too, have only to place our faith and trust in God. He is with us in everything we face.
Dear God, I thank You that I can always turn to You. When I am faced with the difficulties of life, I can put my trust in You. Thank you that You are my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1
When faced with difficult circumstances we can trust God to be our strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 13, 2017
“Do Not Quench the Spirit”
Do not quench the Spirit. —1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired. This sense of restraint will always come as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12), so faint that no one except a saint of God will notice it.
Beware if in sharing your personal testimony you continually have to look back, saying, “Once, a number of years ago, I was saved.” If you have put your “hand to the plow” and are walking in the light, there is no “looking back”— the past is instilled into the present wonder of fellowship and oneness with God (Luke 9:62 ; also see 1 John 1:6-7). If you get out of the light, you become a sentimental Christian, and live only on your memories, and your testimony will have a hard metallic ring to it. Beware of trying to cover up your present refusal to “walk in the light” by recalling your past experiences when you did “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). When-ever the Spirit gives you that sense of restraint, call a halt and make things right, or else you will go on quenching and grieving Him without even knowing it.
Suppose God brings you to a crisis and you almost endure it, but not completely. He will engineer the crisis again, but this time some of the intensity will be lost. You will have less discernment and more humiliation at having disobeyed. If you continue to grieve His Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, because you have totally quenched Him. But if you will go on through the crisis, your life will become a hymn of praise to God. Never become attached to anything that continues to hurt God. For you to be free of it, God must be allowed to hurt whatever it may be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Esther 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: What's More Important?
I remember receiving an invitation to speak at a church in the Midwest. I turned it down. If I had gone, I would have had the attention of a great number of people for an hour. The opportunity to speak about Jesus to some people who didn't know Him.
Is a Tuesday evening at home with three children and a spouse more important than preaching to an audience? I decided to make a list of what I had to lose by saying no to my family one night. I would not have been there to hold Andrea when her finger got slammed in the door. I wouldn't have been there to answer Jenna's question, "Daddy what's a handicapped person?" I would have missed Jenna telling the story of Jesus on the cross during our family devotional.
There are a hundred speakers who could have addressed that crowd, but my girls just have one dad! I made the right choice.
From In the Eye of the Storm
Esther 4
1-3 When Mordecai learned what had been done, he ripped his clothes to shreds and put on sackcloth and ashes. Then he went out in the streets of the city crying out in loud and bitter cries. He came only as far as the King’s Gate, for no one dressed in sackcloth was allowed to enter the King’s Gate. As the king’s order was posted in every province, there was loud lament among the Jews—fasting, weeping, wailing. And most of them stretched out on sackcloth and ashes.
4-8 Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her. The queen was stunned. She sent fresh clothes to Mordecai so he could take off his sackcloth but he wouldn’t accept them. Esther called for Hathach, one of the royal eunuchs whom the king had assigned to wait on her, and told him to go to Mordecai and get the full story of what was happening. So Hathach went to Mordecai in the town square in front of the King’s Gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him. He also told him the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to deposit in the royal bank to finance the massacre of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the bulletin that had been posted in Susa ordering the massacre so he could show it to Esther when he reported back with instructions to go to the king and intercede and plead with him for her people.
9-11 Hathach came back and told Esther everything Mordecai had said. Esther talked it over with Hathach and then sent him back to Mordecai with this message: “Everyone who works for the king here, and even the people out in the provinces, knows that there is a single fate for every man or woman who approaches the king without being invited: death. The one exception is if the king extends his gold scepter; then he or she may live. And it’s been thirty days now since I’ve been invited to come to the king.”
12-14 When Hathach told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai sent her this message: “Don’t think that just because you live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this alive. If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.”
15-16 Esther sent back her answer to Mordecai: “Go and get all the Jews living in Susa together. Fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, either day or night. I and my maids will fast with you. If you will do this, I’ll go to the king, even though it’s forbidden. If I die, I die.”
17 Mordecai left and carried out Esther’s instructions.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Read: Deuteronomy 8:6–18
So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
11-16 Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
INSIGHT:
Why do we sometimes find it difficult to be grateful? How can a sense of entitlement hinder a thankful spirit?
Grateful for Everything
By Sheridan Voysey
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Deuteronomy 8:10
In Australia, it can take hours to drive between towns and fatigue can lead to accidents. So at busy holiday times rest stops are set up on major highways with volunteers offering free coffee. My wife, Merryn, and I grew to enjoy these stops during our long drives there.
On one trip, we pulled in and walked over to order our coffee. An attendant handed the two cups over, and then asked me for two dollars. I asked why. She pointed to the small print on the sign. At this stop, only the driver got free coffee; you had to pay for passengers. Annoyed, I told her this was false advertising, paid the two dollars, and walked off. Back at the car, Merryn pointed out my error: I had turned a gift into an entitlement and become ungrateful for what I received. She was right.
Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
When the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses urged them to be a grateful people (Deut. 8:10). Thanks to the blessings of God, the land was abundant, but they could easily treat this prosperity as something they deserved (vv. 17–18). From this, the Jews developed a practice of giving thanks for every meal, no matter how small. For them, it was all a gift.
I went back to the woman and apologized. A free cup of coffee was a gift I didn’t deserve—and something for which to be thankful.
Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. A Jewish thanksgiving prayer for meals
Be grateful to God for even the smallest gift.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 12, 2017
The Theology of Resting in God
Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? —Matthew 8:26
When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits’ end, showing that we don’t have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.
“…O you of little faith!” What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, “We missed the mark again!” And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.
There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.
We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives? It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
I remember receiving an invitation to speak at a church in the Midwest. I turned it down. If I had gone, I would have had the attention of a great number of people for an hour. The opportunity to speak about Jesus to some people who didn't know Him.
Is a Tuesday evening at home with three children and a spouse more important than preaching to an audience? I decided to make a list of what I had to lose by saying no to my family one night. I would not have been there to hold Andrea when her finger got slammed in the door. I wouldn't have been there to answer Jenna's question, "Daddy what's a handicapped person?" I would have missed Jenna telling the story of Jesus on the cross during our family devotional.
There are a hundred speakers who could have addressed that crowd, but my girls just have one dad! I made the right choice.
From In the Eye of the Storm
Esther 4
1-3 When Mordecai learned what had been done, he ripped his clothes to shreds and put on sackcloth and ashes. Then he went out in the streets of the city crying out in loud and bitter cries. He came only as far as the King’s Gate, for no one dressed in sackcloth was allowed to enter the King’s Gate. As the king’s order was posted in every province, there was loud lament among the Jews—fasting, weeping, wailing. And most of them stretched out on sackcloth and ashes.
4-8 Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her. The queen was stunned. She sent fresh clothes to Mordecai so he could take off his sackcloth but he wouldn’t accept them. Esther called for Hathach, one of the royal eunuchs whom the king had assigned to wait on her, and told him to go to Mordecai and get the full story of what was happening. So Hathach went to Mordecai in the town square in front of the King’s Gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him. He also told him the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to deposit in the royal bank to finance the massacre of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the bulletin that had been posted in Susa ordering the massacre so he could show it to Esther when he reported back with instructions to go to the king and intercede and plead with him for her people.
9-11 Hathach came back and told Esther everything Mordecai had said. Esther talked it over with Hathach and then sent him back to Mordecai with this message: “Everyone who works for the king here, and even the people out in the provinces, knows that there is a single fate for every man or woman who approaches the king without being invited: death. The one exception is if the king extends his gold scepter; then he or she may live. And it’s been thirty days now since I’ve been invited to come to the king.”
12-14 When Hathach told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai sent her this message: “Don’t think that just because you live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this alive. If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.”
15-16 Esther sent back her answer to Mordecai: “Go and get all the Jews living in Susa together. Fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, either day or night. I and my maids will fast with you. If you will do this, I’ll go to the king, even though it’s forbidden. If I die, I die.”
17 Mordecai left and carried out Esther’s instructions.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Read: Deuteronomy 8:6–18
So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
11-16 Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
INSIGHT:
Why do we sometimes find it difficult to be grateful? How can a sense of entitlement hinder a thankful spirit?
Grateful for Everything
By Sheridan Voysey
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Deuteronomy 8:10
In Australia, it can take hours to drive between towns and fatigue can lead to accidents. So at busy holiday times rest stops are set up on major highways with volunteers offering free coffee. My wife, Merryn, and I grew to enjoy these stops during our long drives there.
On one trip, we pulled in and walked over to order our coffee. An attendant handed the two cups over, and then asked me for two dollars. I asked why. She pointed to the small print on the sign. At this stop, only the driver got free coffee; you had to pay for passengers. Annoyed, I told her this was false advertising, paid the two dollars, and walked off. Back at the car, Merryn pointed out my error: I had turned a gift into an entitlement and become ungrateful for what I received. She was right.
Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
When the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses urged them to be a grateful people (Deut. 8:10). Thanks to the blessings of God, the land was abundant, but they could easily treat this prosperity as something they deserved (vv. 17–18). From this, the Jews developed a practice of giving thanks for every meal, no matter how small. For them, it was all a gift.
I went back to the woman and apologized. A free cup of coffee was a gift I didn’t deserve—and something for which to be thankful.
Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. A Jewish thanksgiving prayer for meals
Be grateful to God for even the smallest gift.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 12, 2017
The Theology of Resting in God
Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? —Matthew 8:26
When we are afraid, the least we can do is pray to God. But our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His name have an underlying confidence in Him. God expects His children to be so confident in Him that in any crisis they are the ones who are reliable. Yet our trust is only in God up to a certain point, then we turn back to the elementary panic-stricken prayers of those people who do not even know God. We come to our wits’ end, showing that we don’t have even the slightest amount of confidence in Him or in His sovereign control of the world. To us He seems to be asleep, and we can see nothing but giant, breaking waves on the sea ahead of us.
“…O you of little faith!” What a stinging pain must have shot through the disciples as they surely thought to themselves, “We missed the mark again!” And what a sharp pain will go through us when we suddenly realize that we could have produced complete and utter joy in the heart of Jesus by remaining absolutely confident in Him, in spite of what we were facing.
There are times when there is no storm or crisis in our lives, and we do all that is humanly possible. But it is when a crisis arises that we instantly reveal upon whom we rely. If we have been learning to worship God and to place our trust in Him, the crisis will reveal that we can go to the point of breaking, yet without breaking our confidence in Him.
We have been talking quite a lot about sanctification, but what will be the result in our lives? It will be expressed in our lives as a peaceful resting in God, which means a total oneness with Him. And this oneness will make us not only blameless in His sight, but also a profound joy to Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
Friday, August 11, 2017
Esther 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: WHAT IS YOUR PRICE?
Some years ago, I read a study of what most Americans would do in exchange for ten million dollars. Among the options were. . .abandon their family, abandon their church, give up their citizenship, leave their spouse or their children. It’s not surprising to me what someone would do for ten million dollars. What’s surprising is that most would do something!
What would you do? Or better, what are you doing? “Get real, Max,” you’re saying, “I’ve never had a shot at ten million.” The amount may not have been the same, but the choices are. And some people are willing to give up their family, faith, or morals for far less than ten million dollars. Jesus had a word for that: greed. He called it the practice of measuring life by possessions (Luke 12:15).
Jesus cautioned against “all kinds of greed.” What is your price?
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 3
1-2 Some time later, King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, making him the highest-ranking official in the government. All the king’s servants at the King’s Gate used to honor him by bowing down and kneeling before Haman—that’s what the king had commanded.
2-4 Except Mordecai. Mordecai wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t bow down and kneel. The king’s servants at the King’s Gate asked Mordecai about it: “Why do you cross the king’s command?” Day after day they spoke to him about this but he wouldn’t listen, so they went to Haman to see whether something shouldn’t be done about it. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.
5-6 When Haman saw for himself that Mordecai didn’t bow down and kneel before him, he was outraged. Meanwhile, having learned that Mordecai was a Jew, Haman hated to waste his fury on just one Jew; he looked for a way to eliminate not just Mordecai but all Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.
7 In the first month, the month of Nisan, of the twelfth year of Xerxes, the pur—that is, the lot—was cast under Haman’s charge to determine the propitious day and month. The lot turned up the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
8-9 Haman then spoke with King Xerxes: “There is an odd set of people scattered through the provinces of your kingdom who don’t fit in. Their customs and ways are different from those of everybody else. Worse, they disregard the king’s laws. They’re an affront; the king shouldn’t put up with them. If it please the king, let orders be given that they be destroyed. I’ll pay for it myself. I’ll deposit 375 tons of silver in the royal bank to finance the operation.”
10 The king slipped his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, archenemy of the Jews.
11 “Go ahead,” the king said to Haman. “It’s your money—do whatever you want with those people.”
12 The king’s secretaries were brought in on the thirteenth day of the first month. The orders were written out word for word as Haman had addressed them to the king’s satraps, the governors of every province, and the officials of every people. They were written in the script of each province and the language of each people in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.
13-14 Bulletins were sent out by couriers to all the king’s provinces with orders to massacre, kill, and eliminate all the Jews—youngsters and old men, women and babies—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar, and to plunder their goods. Copies of the bulletin were to be posted in each province, publicly available to all peoples, to get them ready for that day.
15 At the king’s command, the couriers took off; the order was also posted in the palace complex of Susa. The king and Haman sat back and had a drink while the city of Susa reeled from the news.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 11, 2017
Read: John 11:21–35
Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now, I know that whatever you ask God he will give you.”
23 Jesus said, “Your brother will be raised up.”
24 Martha replied, “I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.”
25-26 “You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Master. All along I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.”
28 After saying this, she went to her sister Mary and whispered in her ear, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”
29-32 The moment she heard that, she jumped up and ran out to him. Jesus had not yet entered the town but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When her sympathizing Jewish friends saw Mary run off, they followed her, thinking she was on her way to the tomb to weep there. Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying, “Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33-34 When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. He said, “Where did you put him?”
34-35 “Master, come and see,” they said. Now Jesus wept.
INSIGHT:
Jesus’s absence is what greatly troubled Mary and Martha. They cried, “Lord, . . . if you had been here” (John 11:21, 32). But God has promised, “Never will I leave you” (Heb. 13:5). We may not understand why hard things happen, but in confident trust we can say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid” (v. 6). Sim Kay Tee
If Only . . .
By Cindy Hess Kasper
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. John 11:32
As we exited the parking lot, my husband slowed the car to wait for a young woman riding her bike. When Tom nodded to indicate she could go first, she smiled, waved, and rode on. Moments later, the driver from a parked SUV threw his door open, knocking the young bicyclist to the pavement. Her legs bleeding, she cried as she examined her bent-up bike.
Later, we reflected on the accident: If only we had made her wait . . . If only the driver had looked before opening his door. If only . . . Difficulties catch us up in a cycle of second-guessing ourselves. If only I had known my child was with teens who were drinking . . . If only we had found the cancer earlier . . .
When unexpected trouble comes, we sometimes question the goodness of God. We may even feel the despair that Martha and Mary experienced when their brother died. Oh, if Jesus had only come when He first found out that Lazarus was sick! (John 11:21, 32).
Like Martha and Mary, we don’t always understand why hard things happen to us. But we can rest in the knowledge that God is working out His purposes for a greater good. In every circumstance, we can trust the wisdom of our faithful and loving God.
Father, You have carried me through hard circumstances before. Thank You for teaching me to trust Your heart of love even when I don’t understand what You are doing in my life.
For encouragement read, Why? Seeing God in Our Pain at discoveryseries.org/cb151.
To trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust Him in the dark—that is faith. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 11, 2017
This Experience Must Come
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha…saw him no more. —2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your “Elijah” for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, “I cannot continue without my ‘Elijah.’ ” Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your “Jordan” (2 Kings 2:14). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your “Elijah.” You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go— the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your “Jordan” alone.
Alone at Your “Jericho” (2 Kings 2:15). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your “Elijah” do great things. Yet when you come alone to your “Jericho,” you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your “Elijah,” you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your “Bethel” (2 Kings 2:23). At your “Bethel” you will find yourself at your wits’ end but at the beginning of God’s wisdom. When you come to your wits’ end and feel inclined to panic— don’t! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your “Elijah”— use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 11, 2017
A Cause for All of Us - #7980
It started out as an unimpressive ripple in the weather off the coast of Africa. By the time it was over, it had become Hurricane Katrina, pummeling Florida as a category one storm, then surprising most observers by becoming a category five monster over the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina's last minute shift to the east nearly destroyed the city of New Orleans. Yes, we saw some of the darkest side of human nature as people looted things that they didn't really need, and some even tried to shoot some of the very people who were coming to help. But on a much greater scale, the aftermath to Hurricane Katrina was a massive outpouring of heroism in many flavors.
As Americans learned of the desperation of the victims of the storm, thousands of us mobilized to give them a chance to live. We won't soon forget the military helicopters, launching and re-launching every fifteen minutes to look for more people stranded in the toxic floodwaters that buried parts of the city. There were those memorable scenes of the rescuers coming down the rope from those choppers to save people trapped on their roofs. Doctors and nurses came from all over the country. So many came and did what they knew how to do-from cooking, to counseling, to contributing, to caring enough to take in whole families because lives were at stake.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Cause for All of Us."
Thousands of lives were saved, many of whom would have died otherwise because of this massive rescue operation where everyone did what they knew how to do; each one realizing that a rescue effort means all hands on deck.
It's a picture of the largest scale rescue operation on the planet. It is the rescue mission for which Jesus Christ gave His life, launched at a cross. In His personal mission statement in Luke 19:10 He said He came "to seek and to save what was lost." His final command: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). Because it really is a life-or-death situation, where the eternal destiny of millions of people depends on the rescue efforts of God's people-all of God's people.
The orders are summarized in Proverbs 24:11-12, our word for today from the Word of God. "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter." Those stark words describe every person we know, every person on this planet who has not grabbed the only one God provided to rescue us from the eternal punishment that our sin deserves. That Rescuer is Jesus! The next verse says, "If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this, does not He who weighs the heart perceive it?'" God is not going to excuse us for being AWOL in His all out mobilization to rescue the dying, whatever it takes.
He's expecting you to do what His Son did-to do all you can to rescue the lost. If you cook, cook to rescue the dying. If you're musical, if you're mechanical, if you're a techie, if you're in the media, if you're a prayer warrior, if you contribute to God's work, do what you do to help people go to heaven instead of hell. And if you have influence in anyone's life (and we all do) don't just use that influence to be a nice person for them. Use the relationship you have to tell them about the Rescuer from heaven who rescued you and who is their only hope.
In the wake of a hurricane, we saw thousands of people on the verge of dying without hope and an army of us who said, "We can't just let them die." If you'll ask Jesus to help you see the world through His eyes, you're going to see millions on the verge of dying with no hope of heaven, headed for an unspeakable eternity. And some of them are right within your reach. Can you see them? Are you going to do something about it? Will you do more than you've ever done before? We're losing so many because no rescuer has come.
Some years ago, I read a study of what most Americans would do in exchange for ten million dollars. Among the options were. . .abandon their family, abandon their church, give up their citizenship, leave their spouse or their children. It’s not surprising to me what someone would do for ten million dollars. What’s surprising is that most would do something!
What would you do? Or better, what are you doing? “Get real, Max,” you’re saying, “I’ve never had a shot at ten million.” The amount may not have been the same, but the choices are. And some people are willing to give up their family, faith, or morals for far less than ten million dollars. Jesus had a word for that: greed. He called it the practice of measuring life by possessions (Luke 12:15).
Jesus cautioned against “all kinds of greed.” What is your price?
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Esther 3
1-2 Some time later, King Xerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, making him the highest-ranking official in the government. All the king’s servants at the King’s Gate used to honor him by bowing down and kneeling before Haman—that’s what the king had commanded.
2-4 Except Mordecai. Mordecai wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t bow down and kneel. The king’s servants at the King’s Gate asked Mordecai about it: “Why do you cross the king’s command?” Day after day they spoke to him about this but he wouldn’t listen, so they went to Haman to see whether something shouldn’t be done about it. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.
5-6 When Haman saw for himself that Mordecai didn’t bow down and kneel before him, he was outraged. Meanwhile, having learned that Mordecai was a Jew, Haman hated to waste his fury on just one Jew; he looked for a way to eliminate not just Mordecai but all Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.
7 In the first month, the month of Nisan, of the twelfth year of Xerxes, the pur—that is, the lot—was cast under Haman’s charge to determine the propitious day and month. The lot turned up the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
8-9 Haman then spoke with King Xerxes: “There is an odd set of people scattered through the provinces of your kingdom who don’t fit in. Their customs and ways are different from those of everybody else. Worse, they disregard the king’s laws. They’re an affront; the king shouldn’t put up with them. If it please the king, let orders be given that they be destroyed. I’ll pay for it myself. I’ll deposit 375 tons of silver in the royal bank to finance the operation.”
10 The king slipped his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, archenemy of the Jews.
11 “Go ahead,” the king said to Haman. “It’s your money—do whatever you want with those people.”
12 The king’s secretaries were brought in on the thirteenth day of the first month. The orders were written out word for word as Haman had addressed them to the king’s satraps, the governors of every province, and the officials of every people. They were written in the script of each province and the language of each people in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.
13-14 Bulletins were sent out by couriers to all the king’s provinces with orders to massacre, kill, and eliminate all the Jews—youngsters and old men, women and babies—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar, and to plunder their goods. Copies of the bulletin were to be posted in each province, publicly available to all peoples, to get them ready for that day.
15 At the king’s command, the couriers took off; the order was also posted in the palace complex of Susa. The king and Haman sat back and had a drink while the city of Susa reeled from the news.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 11, 2017
Read: John 11:21–35
Martha said, “Master, if you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now, I know that whatever you ask God he will give you.”
23 Jesus said, “Your brother will be raised up.”
24 Martha replied, “I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.”
25-26 “You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Master. All along I have believed that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.”
28 After saying this, she went to her sister Mary and whispered in her ear, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”
29-32 The moment she heard that, she jumped up and ran out to him. Jesus had not yet entered the town but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When her sympathizing Jewish friends saw Mary run off, they followed her, thinking she was on her way to the tomb to weep there. Mary came to where Jesus was waiting and fell at his feet, saying, “Master, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33-34 When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him. He said, “Where did you put him?”
34-35 “Master, come and see,” they said. Now Jesus wept.
INSIGHT:
Jesus’s absence is what greatly troubled Mary and Martha. They cried, “Lord, . . . if you had been here” (John 11:21, 32). But God has promised, “Never will I leave you” (Heb. 13:5). We may not understand why hard things happen, but in confident trust we can say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid” (v. 6). Sim Kay Tee
If Only . . .
By Cindy Hess Kasper
Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. John 11:32
As we exited the parking lot, my husband slowed the car to wait for a young woman riding her bike. When Tom nodded to indicate she could go first, she smiled, waved, and rode on. Moments later, the driver from a parked SUV threw his door open, knocking the young bicyclist to the pavement. Her legs bleeding, she cried as she examined her bent-up bike.
Later, we reflected on the accident: If only we had made her wait . . . If only the driver had looked before opening his door. If only . . . Difficulties catch us up in a cycle of second-guessing ourselves. If only I had known my child was with teens who were drinking . . . If only we had found the cancer earlier . . .
When unexpected trouble comes, we sometimes question the goodness of God. We may even feel the despair that Martha and Mary experienced when their brother died. Oh, if Jesus had only come when He first found out that Lazarus was sick! (John 11:21, 32).
Like Martha and Mary, we don’t always understand why hard things happen to us. But we can rest in the knowledge that God is working out His purposes for a greater good. In every circumstance, we can trust the wisdom of our faithful and loving God.
Father, You have carried me through hard circumstances before. Thank You for teaching me to trust Your heart of love even when I don’t understand what You are doing in my life.
For encouragement read, Why? Seeing God in Our Pain at discoveryseries.org/cb151.
To trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust Him in the dark—that is faith. Charles Haddon Spurgeon
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 11, 2017
This Experience Must Come
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha…saw him no more. —2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your “Elijah” for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, “I cannot continue without my ‘Elijah.’ ” Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your “Jordan” (2 Kings 2:14). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your “Elijah.” You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go— the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your “Jordan” alone.
Alone at Your “Jericho” (2 Kings 2:15). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your “Elijah” do great things. Yet when you come alone to your “Jericho,” you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your “Elijah,” you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your “Bethel” (2 Kings 2:23). At your “Bethel” you will find yourself at your wits’ end but at the beginning of God’s wisdom. When you come to your wits’ end and feel inclined to panic— don’t! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your “Elijah”— use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 11, 2017
A Cause for All of Us - #7980
It started out as an unimpressive ripple in the weather off the coast of Africa. By the time it was over, it had become Hurricane Katrina, pummeling Florida as a category one storm, then surprising most observers by becoming a category five monster over the Gulf of Mexico. Katrina's last minute shift to the east nearly destroyed the city of New Orleans. Yes, we saw some of the darkest side of human nature as people looted things that they didn't really need, and some even tried to shoot some of the very people who were coming to help. But on a much greater scale, the aftermath to Hurricane Katrina was a massive outpouring of heroism in many flavors.
As Americans learned of the desperation of the victims of the storm, thousands of us mobilized to give them a chance to live. We won't soon forget the military helicopters, launching and re-launching every fifteen minutes to look for more people stranded in the toxic floodwaters that buried parts of the city. There were those memorable scenes of the rescuers coming down the rope from those choppers to save people trapped on their roofs. Doctors and nurses came from all over the country. So many came and did what they knew how to do-from cooking, to counseling, to contributing, to caring enough to take in whole families because lives were at stake.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Cause for All of Us."
Thousands of lives were saved, many of whom would have died otherwise because of this massive rescue operation where everyone did what they knew how to do; each one realizing that a rescue effort means all hands on deck.
It's a picture of the largest scale rescue operation on the planet. It is the rescue mission for which Jesus Christ gave His life, launched at a cross. In His personal mission statement in Luke 19:10 He said He came "to seek and to save what was lost." His final command: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation" (Mark 16:15). Because it really is a life-or-death situation, where the eternal destiny of millions of people depends on the rescue efforts of God's people-all of God's people.
The orders are summarized in Proverbs 24:11-12, our word for today from the Word of God. "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter." Those stark words describe every person we know, every person on this planet who has not grabbed the only one God provided to rescue us from the eternal punishment that our sin deserves. That Rescuer is Jesus! The next verse says, "If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this, does not He who weighs the heart perceive it?'" God is not going to excuse us for being AWOL in His all out mobilization to rescue the dying, whatever it takes.
He's expecting you to do what His Son did-to do all you can to rescue the lost. If you cook, cook to rescue the dying. If you're musical, if you're mechanical, if you're a techie, if you're in the media, if you're a prayer warrior, if you contribute to God's work, do what you do to help people go to heaven instead of hell. And if you have influence in anyone's life (and we all do) don't just use that influence to be a nice person for them. Use the relationship you have to tell them about the Rescuer from heaven who rescued you and who is their only hope.
In the wake of a hurricane, we saw thousands of people on the verge of dying without hope and an army of us who said, "We can't just let them die." If you'll ask Jesus to help you see the world through His eyes, you're going to see millions on the verge of dying with no hope of heaven, headed for an unspeakable eternity. And some of them are right within your reach. Can you see them? Are you going to do something about it? Will you do more than you've ever done before? We're losing so many because no rescuer has come.
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