Max Lucado Daily: Our Family Reunion
The word good-bye. This word may be the challenge of your life. How does a person get through raging loneliness, strength-draining grief? The rest of the world has moved on and you ache to do the same. Take heart. God has served notice. All farewells are on the clock.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 begins, "The Master himself will give the command. Archangel thunder! God's trumpet blast! He will come down from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise. Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. Oh, we'll be walking on air. And there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. Reassure one another with these words!"
Revelation 21:4 promises He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Isn't this our hope? God has promised a restoration of all things. All things-and that includes yours.
From You'll Get Through This
2 Samuel 21
David Avenges the Gibeonites
There was a famine during David’s reign that lasted for three years, so David asked the Lord about it. And the Lord said, “The famine has come because Saul and his family are guilty of murdering the Gibeonites.”
2 So the king summoned the Gibeonites. They were not part of Israel but were all that was left of the nation of the Amorites. The people of Israel had sworn not to kill them, but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, had tried to wipe them out. 3 David asked them, “What can I do for you? How can I make amends so that you will bless the Lord’s people again?”
4 “Well, money can’t settle this matter between us and the family of Saul,” the Gibeonites replied. “Neither can we demand the life of anyone in Israel.”
“What can I do then?” David asked. “Just tell me and I will do it for you.”
5 Then they replied, “It was Saul who planned to destroy us, to keep us from having any place at all in the territory of Israel. 6 So let seven of Saul’s sons be handed over to us, and we will execute them before the Lord at Gibeon, on the mountain of the Lord.[a]”
“All right,” the king said, “I will do it.” 7 The king spared Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth,[b] who was Saul’s grandson, because of the oath David and Jonathan had sworn before the Lord. 8 But he gave them Saul’s two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, whose mother was Rizpah daughter of Aiah. He also gave them the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab,[c] the wife of Adriel son of Barzillai from Meholah. 9 The men of Gibeon executed them on the mountain before the Lord. So all seven of them died together at the beginning of the barley harvest.
10 Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the mother of two of the men, spread burlap on a rock and stayed there the entire harvest season. She prevented the scavenger birds from tearing at their bodies during the day and stopped wild animals from eating them at night. 11 When David learned what Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 12 he went to the people of Jabesh-gilead and retrieved the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan. (When the Philistines had killed Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa, the people of Jabesh-gilead stole their bodies from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them.) 13 So David obtained the bones of Saul and Jonathan, as well as the bones of the men the Gibeonites had executed.
14 Then the king ordered that they bury the bones in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father, at the town of Zela in the land of Benjamin. After that, God ended the famine in the land.
Battles against Philistine Giants
15 Once again the Philistines were at war with Israel. And when David and his men were in the thick of battle, David became weak and exhausted. 16 Ishbi-benob was a descendant of the giants[d]; his bronze spearhead weighed more than seven pounds,[e] and he was armed with a new sword. He had cornered David and was about to kill him. 17 But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue and killed the Philistine. Then David’s men declared, “You are not going out to battle with us again! Why risk snuffing out the light of Israel?”
18 After this, there was another battle against the Philistines at Gob. As they fought, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Saph, another descendant of the giants.
19 During another battle at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair[f] from Bethlehem killed the brother of Goliath of Gath.[g] The handle of his spear was as thick as a weaver’s beam!
20 In another battle with the Philistines at Gath, they encountered a huge man[h] with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all, who was also a descendant of the giants. 21 But when he defied and taunted Israel, he was killed by Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimea.[i]
22 These four Philistines were descendants of the giants of Gath, but David and his warriors killed them.
Footnotes:
21:6 As in Greek version (see also 21:9); Hebrew reads at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord.
21:7 Mephibosheth is another name for Merib-baal.
21:8 As in a few Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and Syriac version (see also 1 Sam 18:19); most Hebrew manuscripts read Michal.
21:16a Or a descendant of the Rapha; also in 21:18, 20, 22.
21:16b Hebrew 300 [shekels] [3.4 kilograms].
21:19a As in parallel text at 1 Chr 20:5; Hebrew reads son of Jaare-oregim.
21:19b As in parallel text at 1 Chr 20:5; Hebrew reads killed Goliath of Gath.
21:20 As in parallel text at 1 Chr 20:6; Hebrew reads a Midianite.
21:21 As in parallel text at 1 Chr 20:7; Hebrew reads Shimei, a variant spelling of Shimea.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Read: Ephesians 2:4-10
But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
INSIGHT:
Salvation is God’s gift and can never be earned by our good works. Paul reminds us that through Christ “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). In today’s passage, Paul emphasizes this grace by repeating the phrase “by grace you have been saved” (2:5,8). While we are not saved by our good works, we are saved so that we can do good works (v. 10). Paul reminds us to be “fruitful in every good work” (Col. 1:10) and “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14).
Grace in Our Hearts
By Cindy Hess Kasper
Let your speech always be with grace. —Colossians 4:6
A few years ago, four-star General Peter Chiarelli (the No. 2 general in the US Army at that time) was mistaken for a waiter by a senior presidential advisor at a formal Washington dinner. As the general stood behind her in his dress uniform, the senior advisor asked him to get her a beverage. She then realized her mistake, and the general graciously eased her embarrassment by cheerfully refilling her glass and even inviting her to join his family sometime for dinner.
The word gracious comes from the word grace, and it can mean an act of kindness or courtesy, like the general’s. But it has an even deeper meaning to followers of Christ. We are recipients of the incredible free and unmerited favor—grace—that God has provided through His Son, Jesus (Eph. 2:8).
Because we have received grace, we are to show it in the way we treat others—for example, in the way we speak to them: “The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious” (Eccl. 10:12). Grace in our hearts pours out in our words and deeds (Col. 3:16-17).
Learning to extend the grace in our hearts toward others is a by-product of the life of a Spirit-filled follower of Christ Jesus—the greatest of grace-givers.
Dear heavenly Father, help me today to season my words with grace. May all that I say and do be gracious to others and pleasing to You, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
God’s grace in the heart brings out good deeds in the life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Will You Examine Yourself?
Joshua said to the people, "You cannot serve the Lord…" —Joshua 24:19
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding this new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions? It really is true to say, “I cannot live a holy life,” but you can decide to let Jesus Christ make you holy. “You cannot serve the Lord…”— but you can place yourself in the proper position where God’s almighty power will flow through you. Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?
“The people said to Joshua, ‘No, but we will serve the Lord!’ ” (Joshua 24:21). This is not an impulsive action, but a deliberate commitment. We tend to say, “But God could never have called me to this. I’m too unworthy. It can’t mean me.” It does mean you, and the more weak and feeble you are, the better. The person who is still relying and trusting in anything within himself is the last person to even come close to saying, “I will serve the Lord.”
We say, “Oh, if only I really could believe!” The question is, “Will I believe?” No wonder Jesus Christ placed such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). If we really believed that God meant what He said, just imagine what we would be like! Do I really dare to let God be to me all that He says He will be?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, July 09, 2015
How to Open Hearts to Jesus - #7434
I had the great privilege of being a part of Billy Graham's Congress on Evangelism in Amsterdam. After several days packed with challenging sessions, the 10,000 evangelists that were attending spent one entire afternoon in what was called a "Day of Witness." We were given box lunches to eat on the bus and then sent across Holland that day to do evangelism in scores of places.
I was asked to be the bus captain for the 40 or so people on my bus. When I men¬tioned those lunches to Richard, the bus driver, he was not a happy camper. He didn't seem par-ticularly sympathetic about what we were going to do. He sure wasn't going to have all those lunches on his bus. He said, "I always end up cleaning a bus full of garbage." The only way we ever got out of the parking lot that day was because I pledged to Richard I would clean the bus myself.
After we arrived at our venue and all the other delegates walked over to the plaza for the outreach, I stayed behind. I filled those trash bags as fast as I could so I could get to where the spiritual action was. It turned out the action was on the bus. Our driver, Richard, inspected the bus and he said in amazement, "It's clean. I can't believe it." Then he wanted to know in depth why we were there.
Suddenly this young man, who had greeted us with a lot of skepticism, wanted to know what made us tick. As I explained the difference between a religion and a relationship with Jesus, it seemed like his heart was opening up to that relationship. While everyone else was presenting the Gospel to crowds of shoppers, that bus became holy ground as our driver invited Jesus Christ to be his Savior. In a sense, that opportunity presented itself because of a guy who picked up his garbage!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Open Hearts to Jesus."
Somewhere in your world there are people who need to hear about your Jesus and you know that. You've thought about trying to tell them what Jesus did for them on the cross. But they don't seem to be interested, or they're off on another spiritual road that it's going to be hard to get them off of. How can you get them to care about Jesus? What can you do to help open the closed door on their heart?
Remember the bus driver and the garbage bags. Or, better yet, remember our word for today from the Word of God, 1 Corinthians 9:19. Paul said, "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible." Wow! What a revolutionary strategy for getting people to heaven! If there's someone you want to win to Jesus, become their servant.
As you look at your lost neighbor or coworker, teammate, family member, fellow student, maybe a friend, ask yourself, "What needs does that person have where I could come alongside them and really be of service?" Maybe they could use your help on a project. Maybe they need practical help like taking care of their kids, helping with transportation, lending them some equipment, listening to them, being at the hospital or the funeral, or picking up the garbage. Our Dutch bus driver's heart wasn't opened by some clever approach I had to talking about Jesus. It was opened by love that did something about a need he cared about.
If you want to reach someone, find a way to serve them. You'll be demonstrating your message before you present your message. Their heart will be soft to the messenger, and hopefully to the message. You'll get close to them by getting down where they are to serve them.
Now, whether it's a bus driver with a messy bus or a neighbor with their own kind of mess, the way to their heart is to be the one with the garbage bag or whatever will serve their particular need. It's life-or-death business that those people hear about your Jesus. Their eternity depends on it. You need to serve them, as Jesus became the servant, when He gave up His life to meet our need.
Before you tell them about Jesus, why don't you show them how Jesus treats people.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
John 6:1-21, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: The Process of Healing
Colossians 3:13 says, "As Christ forgave you, so you also must do." Really, God? Begin the process of healing. How? Well, keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating the wrongdoers. Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Christ did for you. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them, too. If He thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.
Does that make forgiveness easy? No. Quick? Seldom. Painless? Forgiveness vacillates. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But it's okay. As long as you're trying to forgive, you are forgiving. It is when you no longer try that bitterness sets in. Keep trying. Keep forgiving.
From You'll Get Through This
John 6:1-21
Jesus Feeds Five Thousand
After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. 3 Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4 (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.
7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money[a] to feed them!”
8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”
10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. 12 After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.
14 When the people saw him[b] do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!”[c] 15 When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.
Jesus Walks on Water
16 That evening Jesus’ disciples went down to the shore to wait for him. 17 But as darkness fell and Jesus still hadn’t come back, they got into the boat and headed across the lake toward Capernaum. 18 Soon a gale swept down upon them, and the sea grew very rough. 19 They had rowed three or four miles[d] when suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water toward the boat. They were terrified, 20 but he called out to them, “Don’t be afraid. I am here![e]” 21 Then they were eager to let him in the boat, and immediately they arrived at their destination!
Footnotes:
6:7 Greek Two hundred denarii would not be enough. A denarius was equivalent to a laborer’s full day’s wage.
6:14a Some manuscripts read Jesus.
6:14b See Deut 18:15, 18; Mal 4:5-6.
6:19 Greek 25 or 30 stadia [4.6 or 5.5 kilometers].
6:20 Or The ‘I am’ is here; Greek reads I am. See Exod 3:14.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Read: Judges 6:11–16
Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
16 The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
INSIGHT:
Today’s text provides some insight into how we should view situations for which we feel inadequate. Gideon did not feel prepared to go into battle against the Midianites who were oppressing Israel. Responding to Gideon’s understandable concern, God sent the angel of the Lord to encourage him. He said that Gideon should “go in the strength” he had (Judg. 6:14 niv), but he also said, “I will be with you” (v. 16). When God calls us to take on a difficult task, we can rely on His strength and power to help us accomplish it.
Ordinary People
By Poh Fang Chia
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. —2 Corinthians 4:7
Gideon was an ordinary person. His story, recorded in Judges 6, inspires me. He was a farmer, and a timid one at that. When God called him to deliver Israel from the Midianites, Gideon’s initial response was “How can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (Judg. 6:15). God promised that He would be with Gideon and that he would be able to accomplish what he had been asked to do (v. 16). Gideon’s obedience brought victory to Israel, and he is listed as one of the great heroes of faith (Heb. 11:32).
Many other individuals played a significant part in this plan to save the Israelites from a strong enemy force. God provided Gideon with 300 men, valiant heroes all, to win the battle. We are not told their names, but their bravery and obedience are recorded in the Scriptures (Judg. 7:5-23).
Today, God is still calling ordinary people to do His work and assuring us that He will be with us as we do. Because we are ordinary people being used by God, it’s obvious that the power comes from God and not from us.
Lord, I am just an ordinary person, but You are an all-powerful God. I want to serve You. Please show me how and give me the strength.
God uses ordinary people to carry out His extraordinary plan.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Will To Be Faithful
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
A Parent's Best Classroom - #7433
There's nothing quite as boring as listening to information you've heard before, presented the same way you've heard it presented before. Since I used to fly quite a bit, I heard the flight attendant's announcements many, many times. To be honest, I got to the point where I didn't pay a lot of attention, because it was so predictable…usually.
There was this one flight - we had a flight attendant who kept throwing in humorous surprises and fresh ways of saying things, everyone was listening to him. For example he said, "Now, we're preparing for landing and you need to put your seats in the upright, most uncomfortable position." See, they never say that! I thought that was good! We all laughed. And then I liked the part where he said, "The captain has turned on the seat belt sign, which is an indication he has finally found the airport." I love it! It sounds unpredictable. This man knew something about communication. If you have important information to communicate, don't be so predictable.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Parent's Best Classroom."
God has given moms and dads some really important announcements for them to make to their children. He actually talks about them in Deuteronomy 6, and I'll begin reading at verse 5, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Then impress them on your children."
Well, we try to do that. If you're a Christian parent, I'm sure you try to impress the ways of God; the teachings of God; the boundaries of God on your children. But sometimes our children respond with the same kind of, well, disinterest that I did to those predictable airline announcements. "Yeah, here we go again!" They know what you're going to say before you say it. So maybe it isn't enough that we teach our children about the Lord. We need to do it in ways and in places where it's not so predictable, so maybe we'll have their full attention.
In the rest of Deuteronomy 6:7, Moses tells how to do that, "Talk about them (that's God's commandments) when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up." See, sometimes we get immune to hearing Biblical truths the way they've always been presented; in places we always hear them. We've got like practiced responses to a sermon, or to family devotions, or to Christian meetings. We know what to expect. We know how we're supposed to act. It's predictable.
But there's something disarming about God-talk in the middle of everyday activity-the classroom of everyday life: when we're walking, riding; getting ready for bed at night. See, the best place for your son, or daughter, or grandchild to see God at work might be on the baseball field. Or on the way to the store with you, suddenly some question comes up that gives you a teachable moment. Grab that! Maybe it's debriefing their day over a Big Mac, or maybe it's in those more mellow bedtime moments, riding along with you all the places you chauffeur them. That's the classroom of everyday life, the best place to learn about the God that I hope, as the Bible says, "you love with all your heart."
Don't just depend on formal settings to get the job done; not when you want to introduce God to your child. They may shut down for the formal announcements. But look for God together in the ordinary, the relaxed, the casual, the everyday. As a parent, you have the blessed responsibility of passing on God's announcements to kids that He has trusted to you. Make sure those announcements aren't just true. Make sure they're interesting.
I think if I had not begun a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by the time I had kids, I would have been driven into His arms. Because so much they need me to be I couldn't be for them; too much selfishness, too much anger, too much hurting, too much "me". And I've found as a Dad in Jesus, a Savior who keeps His promise, "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old is gone. A new life has begun." All my failures, all my mistakes, all my sins forgiven, and the power to finally be the parent I want to be.
If you feel like, "Man, I am not what my kids need; I don't know how to get there." Jesus is that answer. I would encourage you to check out a relationship with Him today, parent to parent. And there are a couple of ways you can do that. You could go to our website ANewStory.com. Or you can text us at 442-244-WORD.
You know, Jesus comes into you, He comes into your family and things will never be the same.
Colossians 3:13 says, "As Christ forgave you, so you also must do." Really, God? Begin the process of healing. How? Well, keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Hate the wrong without hating the wrongdoers. Turn your attention away from what they did to you to what Christ did for you. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them, too. If He thinks they are worth forgiving, they are.
Does that make forgiveness easy? No. Quick? Seldom. Painless? Forgiveness vacillates. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But it's okay. As long as you're trying to forgive, you are forgiving. It is when you no longer try that bitterness sets in. Keep trying. Keep forgiving.
From You'll Get Through This
John 6:1-21
Jesus Feeds Five Thousand
After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. 3 Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4 (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.
7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money[a] to feed them!”
8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”
10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. 12 After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.
14 When the people saw him[b] do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!”[c] 15 When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.
Jesus Walks on Water
16 That evening Jesus’ disciples went down to the shore to wait for him. 17 But as darkness fell and Jesus still hadn’t come back, they got into the boat and headed across the lake toward Capernaum. 18 Soon a gale swept down upon them, and the sea grew very rough. 19 They had rowed three or four miles[d] when suddenly they saw Jesus walking on the water toward the boat. They were terrified, 20 but he called out to them, “Don’t be afraid. I am here![e]” 21 Then they were eager to let him in the boat, and immediately they arrived at their destination!
Footnotes:
6:7 Greek Two hundred denarii would not be enough. A denarius was equivalent to a laborer’s full day’s wage.
6:14a Some manuscripts read Jesus.
6:14b See Deut 18:15, 18; Mal 4:5-6.
6:19 Greek 25 or 30 stadia [4.6 or 5.5 kilometers].
6:20 Or The ‘I am’ is here; Greek reads I am. See Exod 3:14.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Read: Judges 6:11–16
Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”
16 The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
INSIGHT:
Today’s text provides some insight into how we should view situations for which we feel inadequate. Gideon did not feel prepared to go into battle against the Midianites who were oppressing Israel. Responding to Gideon’s understandable concern, God sent the angel of the Lord to encourage him. He said that Gideon should “go in the strength” he had (Judg. 6:14 niv), but he also said, “I will be with you” (v. 16). When God calls us to take on a difficult task, we can rely on His strength and power to help us accomplish it.
Ordinary People
By Poh Fang Chia
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. —2 Corinthians 4:7
Gideon was an ordinary person. His story, recorded in Judges 6, inspires me. He was a farmer, and a timid one at that. When God called him to deliver Israel from the Midianites, Gideon’s initial response was “How can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (Judg. 6:15). God promised that He would be with Gideon and that he would be able to accomplish what he had been asked to do (v. 16). Gideon’s obedience brought victory to Israel, and he is listed as one of the great heroes of faith (Heb. 11:32).
Many other individuals played a significant part in this plan to save the Israelites from a strong enemy force. God provided Gideon with 300 men, valiant heroes all, to win the battle. We are not told their names, but their bravery and obedience are recorded in the Scriptures (Judg. 7:5-23).
Today, God is still calling ordinary people to do His work and assuring us that He will be with us as we do. Because we are ordinary people being used by God, it’s obvious that the power comes from God and not from us.
Lord, I am just an ordinary person, but You are an all-powerful God. I want to serve You. Please show me how and give me the strength.
God uses ordinary people to carry out His extraordinary plan.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Will To Be Faithful
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
A Parent's Best Classroom - #7433
There's nothing quite as boring as listening to information you've heard before, presented the same way you've heard it presented before. Since I used to fly quite a bit, I heard the flight attendant's announcements many, many times. To be honest, I got to the point where I didn't pay a lot of attention, because it was so predictable…usually.
There was this one flight - we had a flight attendant who kept throwing in humorous surprises and fresh ways of saying things, everyone was listening to him. For example he said, "Now, we're preparing for landing and you need to put your seats in the upright, most uncomfortable position." See, they never say that! I thought that was good! We all laughed. And then I liked the part where he said, "The captain has turned on the seat belt sign, which is an indication he has finally found the airport." I love it! It sounds unpredictable. This man knew something about communication. If you have important information to communicate, don't be so predictable.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Parent's Best Classroom."
God has given moms and dads some really important announcements for them to make to their children. He actually talks about them in Deuteronomy 6, and I'll begin reading at verse 5, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Then impress them on your children."
Well, we try to do that. If you're a Christian parent, I'm sure you try to impress the ways of God; the teachings of God; the boundaries of God on your children. But sometimes our children respond with the same kind of, well, disinterest that I did to those predictable airline announcements. "Yeah, here we go again!" They know what you're going to say before you say it. So maybe it isn't enough that we teach our children about the Lord. We need to do it in ways and in places where it's not so predictable, so maybe we'll have their full attention.
In the rest of Deuteronomy 6:7, Moses tells how to do that, "Talk about them (that's God's commandments) when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up." See, sometimes we get immune to hearing Biblical truths the way they've always been presented; in places we always hear them. We've got like practiced responses to a sermon, or to family devotions, or to Christian meetings. We know what to expect. We know how we're supposed to act. It's predictable.
But there's something disarming about God-talk in the middle of everyday activity-the classroom of everyday life: when we're walking, riding; getting ready for bed at night. See, the best place for your son, or daughter, or grandchild to see God at work might be on the baseball field. Or on the way to the store with you, suddenly some question comes up that gives you a teachable moment. Grab that! Maybe it's debriefing their day over a Big Mac, or maybe it's in those more mellow bedtime moments, riding along with you all the places you chauffeur them. That's the classroom of everyday life, the best place to learn about the God that I hope, as the Bible says, "you love with all your heart."
Don't just depend on formal settings to get the job done; not when you want to introduce God to your child. They may shut down for the formal announcements. But look for God together in the ordinary, the relaxed, the casual, the everyday. As a parent, you have the blessed responsibility of passing on God's announcements to kids that He has trusted to you. Make sure those announcements aren't just true. Make sure they're interesting.
I think if I had not begun a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by the time I had kids, I would have been driven into His arms. Because so much they need me to be I couldn't be for them; too much selfishness, too much anger, too much hurting, too much "me". And I've found as a Dad in Jesus, a Savior who keeps His promise, "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old is gone. A new life has begun." All my failures, all my mistakes, all my sins forgiven, and the power to finally be the parent I want to be.
If you feel like, "Man, I am not what my kids need; I don't know how to get there." Jesus is that answer. I would encourage you to check out a relationship with Him today, parent to parent. And there are a couple of ways you can do that. You could go to our website ANewStory.com. Or you can text us at 442-244-WORD.
You know, Jesus comes into you, He comes into your family and things will never be the same.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Psalm 70, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Forgiveness: Stay the Course
Vengeance is God's. He will repay-whether ultimately on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God can discipline your abusive boss. He can bring your ex to his knees or to her senses. Forgiveness doesn't diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. The God of justice has the precise prescription. Forgive your enemies? Ah, that's where you and I come in.
"Do not let the sun go down on your anger," Paul wrote, "and do not give the devil an opportunity" (Ephesians 4:26-27). Don't give the devil territory or ground. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place! When it comes to forgiveness, all of us are beginners. Stay the course!
From You'll Get Through This
Psalm 70
O God, hurry to take me out of trouble. O Lord, hurry to help me! 2 Let those who want to kill me be ashamed and brought low. Let those who want to hurt me be turned away in shame. 3 Let those who say, “O, O!” be turned back because of their shame.
4 Let all who look for You be full of joy and be glad in You. And let those who love Your saving power always say, “Let God be honored.” 5 But I am poor and in need. Hurry to me, O God! You are my help and the One Who takes me out of trouble. O Lord, do not wait.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Read: Job 16:1-5
Job Talks
Then Job answered, 2 “I have heard many such things. All of you bring trouble instead of comfort. 3 Is there no end to your words that are full of wind? What is your problem that you keep on talking? 4 I also could speak like you, if I were in your place. I could put words together against you, and shake my head at you. 5 I could give you strength with my mouth. I could speak words of comfort and make your pain less.
INSIGHT:
The story of how Job wrestled with tragedy and how he struggled to understand God’s role in the apparent injustices of life is well known. Job and his three friends (Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite) engage in a series of debates to try to come to terms with life’s great heartaches. In Job 16, Job responds to more charges from Eliphaz who says Job’s suffering is punishment for wickedness (see 15:17-35). The issues of suffering and injustice do not always find resolution in this life, regardless of our attempts to explain them away. In the end, the wise response is to say that “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29), for some things are just not revealed to us.
The Slow Walk
By Tim Gustafson
I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. —John 14:16
Caleb was sick. Really sick! Diagnosed with a nervous system disease, the 5-year-old suffered from temporary paralysis. His anxious parents prayed. And waited. Slowly, Caleb began to recover. Months later, when doctors cleared him to attend school, all Caleb could manage was a slow, unsteady walk.
One day his dad visited him at school. He watched his son haltingly descend the steps to the playground. And then he saw Caleb’s young friend Tyler come alongside him. For the entire recess, as the other kids raced and romped and played, Tyler slowly walked the playground with his frail friend.
Job must have ached for a friend like Tyler. Instead, he had three friends who were certain he was guilty. “Who ever perished, being innocent?” asked Eliphaz (Job 4:7). Such accusations prompted Job to bitterly declare, “Miserable comforters are you all!” (16:2).
How unlike Jesus. On the eve of His crucifixion He took time to comfort His disciples. He promised them the Holy Spirit, who would be with them forever (John 14:16), and assured them, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). Then, just before He returned to His Father, He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
The One who died for us also walks with us, step by painstaking step.
Father, we tend to say too much to our hurting friends. Help us choose our words wisely. Teach us to walk slowly with those in pain, as You walk patiently with us.
Sometimes the best way to be like Jesus is to sit quietly with a hurting friend.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
Enter by the narrow gate….Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life…. —Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in— it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). But we have to “work out” that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10), and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God’s grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
How to Hear God - #7432
I went out shooting, yes, as in a gun, with a friend of mine a while back, and I got a high caliber scare! The report of one volley of gunfire was so loud it literally made me deaf for a little while. I mean it was just temporary, just a few minutes, but I'll tell you it was all the deafness I ever want to experience. It is not a pleasant prospect to imagine hearing no children's laughter, no tender words, no music, no birds singing, and I had a new understanding of the tragedy of deafness. There's one kind, though, that isn't a tragedy. It's a triumph.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Hear God."
Our word for today from the Word of God; we're in Psalm 46, and you'll find it to be a very familiar phrase out of the Bible I think. David has said that God is our "Help in trouble," and then it goes on and talks about, "We won't fear though the earth gives away," (Wow!) "or the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." That's pretty tough times. "Though the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." He's talking about the times when everything's in upheaval. And following on the heels of all this turbulence he says in Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God."
If you've ever done much formal Bible study you might have run into a biblical scholar named William Barclay, who wrote some commentaries that have some, you know, sometimes helpful information. I certainly don't agree with everything that he wrote by any means, but there was a lot in there that really brought some scriptures to life. I've reached into my library and pulled out his volume on whatever book of the Bible that I'm studying.
I learned that he was really quite a powerful preacher until he began to lose his hearing. When he was almost completely deaf, instead of losing hope, he consecrated this new life of deafness to the Lord and he immersed himself in a world where he could hear, he said, only one voice - the voice of God. And in that environment he said it opened him up to whole new understandings.
You know, it's God's intention that we actually have times of planned deafness where we're deaf to every other voice but God's. We're wired by God, our Creator, to need regular time where we hear no voice but His. Jesus often did that in the midst of the most demanding responsibilities any man ever had. Now, that requires privacy; you've got to find a place where it's just you and Him. It requires time, because it takes a little while to silence all the other chatter inside so you can only hear one voice. And maybe that's why it's even good to do it in the morning to try to get a jump on the day before you look at any emails, before you turn on the television, before you check the news. Maybe even before anybody else is up. It's just me and you God time.
And this requires consistency, because practice makes perfect. And you need to do it like building one day on the next day on the next day. Emily Dickenson, the poet, said, "The world is too much with us." Do you ever feel like that?
Let me ask you, "When is your time to hear that only one voice - the voice from heaven?" When you turn off your cell phone, your iPod, the television, the computer, even those closest to you and you get in touch with heaven. You know what happens? Some things that looked really big look a lot smaller, and you experience like a shower for your soul that washes off the stresses of the pressure cooker living we're all doing. But it won't happen unless you plan it.
Make it a non-negotiable of your schedule. Plan it so you are deaf to earth for a while so you can hear from heaven.
Vengeance is God's. He will repay-whether ultimately on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God can discipline your abusive boss. He can bring your ex to his knees or to her senses. Forgiveness doesn't diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. The God of justice has the precise prescription. Forgive your enemies? Ah, that's where you and I come in.
"Do not let the sun go down on your anger," Paul wrote, "and do not give the devil an opportunity" (Ephesians 4:26-27). Don't give the devil territory or ground. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place! When it comes to forgiveness, all of us are beginners. Stay the course!
From You'll Get Through This
Psalm 70
O God, hurry to take me out of trouble. O Lord, hurry to help me! 2 Let those who want to kill me be ashamed and brought low. Let those who want to hurt me be turned away in shame. 3 Let those who say, “O, O!” be turned back because of their shame.
4 Let all who look for You be full of joy and be glad in You. And let those who love Your saving power always say, “Let God be honored.” 5 But I am poor and in need. Hurry to me, O God! You are my help and the One Who takes me out of trouble. O Lord, do not wait.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Read: Job 16:1-5
Job Talks
Then Job answered, 2 “I have heard many such things. All of you bring trouble instead of comfort. 3 Is there no end to your words that are full of wind? What is your problem that you keep on talking? 4 I also could speak like you, if I were in your place. I could put words together against you, and shake my head at you. 5 I could give you strength with my mouth. I could speak words of comfort and make your pain less.
INSIGHT:
The story of how Job wrestled with tragedy and how he struggled to understand God’s role in the apparent injustices of life is well known. Job and his three friends (Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite) engage in a series of debates to try to come to terms with life’s great heartaches. In Job 16, Job responds to more charges from Eliphaz who says Job’s suffering is punishment for wickedness (see 15:17-35). The issues of suffering and injustice do not always find resolution in this life, regardless of our attempts to explain them away. In the end, the wise response is to say that “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29), for some things are just not revealed to us.
The Slow Walk
By Tim Gustafson
I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. —John 14:16
Caleb was sick. Really sick! Diagnosed with a nervous system disease, the 5-year-old suffered from temporary paralysis. His anxious parents prayed. And waited. Slowly, Caleb began to recover. Months later, when doctors cleared him to attend school, all Caleb could manage was a slow, unsteady walk.
One day his dad visited him at school. He watched his son haltingly descend the steps to the playground. And then he saw Caleb’s young friend Tyler come alongside him. For the entire recess, as the other kids raced and romped and played, Tyler slowly walked the playground with his frail friend.
Job must have ached for a friend like Tyler. Instead, he had three friends who were certain he was guilty. “Who ever perished, being innocent?” asked Eliphaz (Job 4:7). Such accusations prompted Job to bitterly declare, “Miserable comforters are you all!” (16:2).
How unlike Jesus. On the eve of His crucifixion He took time to comfort His disciples. He promised them the Holy Spirit, who would be with them forever (John 14:16), and assured them, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). Then, just before He returned to His Father, He said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
The One who died for us also walks with us, step by painstaking step.
Father, we tend to say too much to our hurting friends. Help us choose our words wisely. Teach us to walk slowly with those in pain, as You walk patiently with us.
Sometimes the best way to be like Jesus is to sit quietly with a hurting friend.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
Enter by the narrow gate….Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life…. —Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in— it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). But we have to “work out” that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10), and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God’s grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
How to Hear God - #7432
I went out shooting, yes, as in a gun, with a friend of mine a while back, and I got a high caliber scare! The report of one volley of gunfire was so loud it literally made me deaf for a little while. I mean it was just temporary, just a few minutes, but I'll tell you it was all the deafness I ever want to experience. It is not a pleasant prospect to imagine hearing no children's laughter, no tender words, no music, no birds singing, and I had a new understanding of the tragedy of deafness. There's one kind, though, that isn't a tragedy. It's a triumph.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Hear God."
Our word for today from the Word of God; we're in Psalm 46, and you'll find it to be a very familiar phrase out of the Bible I think. David has said that God is our "Help in trouble," and then it goes on and talks about, "We won't fear though the earth gives away," (Wow!) "or the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." That's pretty tough times. "Though the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." He's talking about the times when everything's in upheaval. And following on the heels of all this turbulence he says in Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God."
If you've ever done much formal Bible study you might have run into a biblical scholar named William Barclay, who wrote some commentaries that have some, you know, sometimes helpful information. I certainly don't agree with everything that he wrote by any means, but there was a lot in there that really brought some scriptures to life. I've reached into my library and pulled out his volume on whatever book of the Bible that I'm studying.
I learned that he was really quite a powerful preacher until he began to lose his hearing. When he was almost completely deaf, instead of losing hope, he consecrated this new life of deafness to the Lord and he immersed himself in a world where he could hear, he said, only one voice - the voice of God. And in that environment he said it opened him up to whole new understandings.
You know, it's God's intention that we actually have times of planned deafness where we're deaf to every other voice but God's. We're wired by God, our Creator, to need regular time where we hear no voice but His. Jesus often did that in the midst of the most demanding responsibilities any man ever had. Now, that requires privacy; you've got to find a place where it's just you and Him. It requires time, because it takes a little while to silence all the other chatter inside so you can only hear one voice. And maybe that's why it's even good to do it in the morning to try to get a jump on the day before you look at any emails, before you turn on the television, before you check the news. Maybe even before anybody else is up. It's just me and you God time.
And this requires consistency, because practice makes perfect. And you need to do it like building one day on the next day on the next day. Emily Dickenson, the poet, said, "The world is too much with us." Do you ever feel like that?
Let me ask you, "When is your time to hear that only one voice - the voice from heaven?" When you turn off your cell phone, your iPod, the television, the computer, even those closest to you and you get in touch with heaven. You know what happens? Some things that looked really big look a lot smaller, and you experience like a shower for your soul that washes off the stresses of the pressure cooker living we're all doing. But it won't happen unless you plan it.
Make it a non-negotiable of your schedule. Plan it so you are deaf to earth for a while so you can hear from heaven.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Psalm 64, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God Never Gives Up
God moves us forward by healing our past! Can he really? Can God heal this ancient hurt in my heart? Of course He can. In fact, God cares more about justice than we do. Paul reminds us in Romans 12:17-19, "Never pay back evil for evil. . .never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God, for He has said that He will repay those who deserve it."
We fear the evildoer will slip into the night, unknown and unpunished. Escape to Fiji and sip mai tais on the beach. Not to worry. Scripture says, "God will repay," not "God might repay." God will execute justice on behalf of truth and fairness.
Unlike us, God never gives up on a person. Never. Long after we've moved on, God is still there, probing the conscience, stirring conviction, always orchestrating redemption. Fix your enemies? That's God's job.
From You'll Get Through This
Psalm 64
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
O God, listen to my complaint.
Protect my life from my enemies’ threats.
2 Hide me from the plots of this evil mob,
from this gang of wrongdoers.
3 They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their bitter words like arrows.
4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent,
attacking suddenly and fearlessly.
5 They encourage each other to do evil
and plan how to set their traps in secret.
“Who will ever notice?” they ask.
6 As they plot their crimes, they say,
“We have devised the perfect plan!”
Yes, the human heart and mind are cunning.
7 But God himself will shoot them with his arrows,
suddenly striking them down.
8 Their own tongues will ruin them,
and all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
9 Then everyone will be afraid;
they will proclaim the mighty acts of God
and realize all the amazing things he does.
10 The godly will rejoice in the Lord
and find shelter in him.
And those who do what is right
will praise him.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, July 06, 2015
Read: Psalm 91:1-8
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
3 For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
4 He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
6 Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
7 Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
8 Just open your eyes,
and see how the wicked are punished.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 91 celebrates the safety and security of those who trust in God. The psalmist warns of danger from insidious schemes of men, uninvited troubles, physical attacks, sickness, and disasters. But the Lord protects those who trust in Him. This psalm does not promise immunity from danger, but security in the midst of it. Various metaphors are used to describe the safety of the Lord including “the secret place of the Most High,” “the shadow of the Almighty,” a “refuge,” and a “fortress” (vv. 1-2). He will “cover [us] with His feathers,” “under His wings” we take refuge (v. 4), and “His faithful promises are [our] armor and protection” (v. 4 nlt).
Darkness and Light
By Bill Crowder |
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, . . . nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness. —Psalm 91:5-6
When I was a boy, I delivered newspapers to about 140 homes on two streets that were connected by a cemetery. Since I delivered a morning newspaper, I had to be out at 3:00 a.m. walking through that cemetery in the darkness. Sometimes I would be so frightened that I would actually run! I was afraid until I was standing safely under a streetlight on the other side. The scary darkness was dispelled by the light.
The psalmist understood the connection between fear and darkness, but he also knew that God is greater than those fears. He wrote, “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness” (Ps. 91:5-6). Neither terrors of night nor evil in the darkness need to drive us to fear. We have a God who sent His Son, the Light of the World (John 8:12).
In the light of God’s love and grace and truth, we can find courage, help, and strength to live for Him.
Lord, I come to You, the Light of the World. I want You to bring Your light into the darkness of my fears.
For help in overcoming worry, read discoveryseries.org/q0711
You need not fear the darkness if you are walking with the Light of the World.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 06, 2015
Visions Becoming Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool… —Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 06, 2015
The Band and the Master - #7431
We had three kids. They were all in the junior high band at different times over a seven year period of time. So I got to go to seven straight years of junior high band concerts. I enjoyed watching our kids develop musically, but I cannot say it was a memorable music experience. Fortunately, they stuck to pieces that were at their level. But what if they had attempted, say Beethoven, the musical genius.
Just imagine you didn't know much about Beethoven and I invited you to come to one of these band concerts with me? "Hey, they're performing a Beethoven symphony. I know you're going to be impressed with Beethoven's ability!" Now, it's after the concert and I say, "Well, what did you think of Beethoven?" Your response? "Uh, not impressed." "Well, I know there were a lot of squeaks and squawks and instruments missing. But please, please don't judge Beethoven based on the way they played his music. He's a genius. They just don't play his music real well."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Band and the Master."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 1:16-17; two words here that instantly eliminate a lot of confusion and most of the reasons for not giving yourself to Jesus Christ. Here's what it says, "Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee, and He saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow Me' Jesus said. At once they left their nets and followed Him."
Not long after that it records in Mark 2:14, that He came up to Levi, who was a tax collector, and He came to his tax collector's booth and said, "Follow Me." He just kept saying that to people, "Follow Me." In other words Jesus is saying, "I am the issue." That's why one of Christianity's most brilliant minds, the Apostle Paul, said in 1 Corinthians 2:2, "I was determined when I was among you to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He's saying, "This is all about Jesus and Him dying on the cross for you."
See, so many people's objections to Jesus are because, well, honestly Christians you might say don't play His music very well. "People are hypocrites! I've seen those Christians." Really? Was Jesus a hypocrite? "Well, the church is only after money!" Was Jesus only after money? See, the only reason for not being a follower of Jesus is because of a problem you have with Jesus. It's never been about Christianity. It's never been about Christians. It's all about Jesus. If you don't like the inconsistencies in Christianity, neither do I. Neither does Jesus. But that's no reason to put off the Son of God.
Maybe you've been burned by Christianity or Christians somewhere along the way. But it wasn't Jesus who did that. As a bumper sticker says, "Christians aren't perfect, but they're forgiven." Like the junior high band playing the music of Beethoven. We don't always play His music very well, but we're practicing and trying to sound more like Him. But don't reject the Savior who died in your place for your sin because of something that His imperfect followers have done.
When you take your last breath and your heart beats for the last time, it's going to be Jesus you're face to face with. And all that's going to matter is how you responded to His life-changing, life-giving invitation, "Follow Me."
Don't you want to be sure you belong to Him? No one else can get you to heaven, because no one else paid for the sin that will keep you out of heaven. No one else has the power to give you eternal life, because no one else walked out of His grave under His own power except the Savior, Jesus. He's ready to walk into your life.
If you want that to happen for you today and experience this Jesus for yourself, why don't you go to our website ANewStory.com. Or if you want to talk with someone about what it means to follow Christ, text us at 442-244-WORD.
He created you. He opened the way to God by loving you enough to die in your place for your sins. He loves you very, very much. He's been waiting a long time for you. How many more times are there going to be? I don't know. The only guarantee you've got is today.
I know the band isn't perfect, but the Master, Jesus? You can totally trust Him. Haven't you been in the darkness long enough?
God moves us forward by healing our past! Can he really? Can God heal this ancient hurt in my heart? Of course He can. In fact, God cares more about justice than we do. Paul reminds us in Romans 12:17-19, "Never pay back evil for evil. . .never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God, for He has said that He will repay those who deserve it."
We fear the evildoer will slip into the night, unknown and unpunished. Escape to Fiji and sip mai tais on the beach. Not to worry. Scripture says, "God will repay," not "God might repay." God will execute justice on behalf of truth and fairness.
Unlike us, God never gives up on a person. Never. Long after we've moved on, God is still there, probing the conscience, stirring conviction, always orchestrating redemption. Fix your enemies? That's God's job.
From You'll Get Through This
Psalm 64
For the choir director: A psalm of David.
O God, listen to my complaint.
Protect my life from my enemies’ threats.
2 Hide me from the plots of this evil mob,
from this gang of wrongdoers.
3 They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their bitter words like arrows.
4 They shoot from ambush at the innocent,
attacking suddenly and fearlessly.
5 They encourage each other to do evil
and plan how to set their traps in secret.
“Who will ever notice?” they ask.
6 As they plot their crimes, they say,
“We have devised the perfect plan!”
Yes, the human heart and mind are cunning.
7 But God himself will shoot them with his arrows,
suddenly striking them down.
8 Their own tongues will ruin them,
and all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
9 Then everyone will be afraid;
they will proclaim the mighty acts of God
and realize all the amazing things he does.
10 The godly will rejoice in the Lord
and find shelter in him.
And those who do what is right
will praise him.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, July 06, 2015
Read: Psalm 91:1-8
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
3 For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
4 He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
5 Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
6 Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
7 Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
8 Just open your eyes,
and see how the wicked are punished.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 91 celebrates the safety and security of those who trust in God. The psalmist warns of danger from insidious schemes of men, uninvited troubles, physical attacks, sickness, and disasters. But the Lord protects those who trust in Him. This psalm does not promise immunity from danger, but security in the midst of it. Various metaphors are used to describe the safety of the Lord including “the secret place of the Most High,” “the shadow of the Almighty,” a “refuge,” and a “fortress” (vv. 1-2). He will “cover [us] with His feathers,” “under His wings” we take refuge (v. 4), and “His faithful promises are [our] armor and protection” (v. 4 nlt).
Darkness and Light
By Bill Crowder |
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, . . . nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness. —Psalm 91:5-6
When I was a boy, I delivered newspapers to about 140 homes on two streets that were connected by a cemetery. Since I delivered a morning newspaper, I had to be out at 3:00 a.m. walking through that cemetery in the darkness. Sometimes I would be so frightened that I would actually run! I was afraid until I was standing safely under a streetlight on the other side. The scary darkness was dispelled by the light.
The psalmist understood the connection between fear and darkness, but he also knew that God is greater than those fears. He wrote, “You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness” (Ps. 91:5-6). Neither terrors of night nor evil in the darkness need to drive us to fear. We have a God who sent His Son, the Light of the World (John 8:12).
In the light of God’s love and grace and truth, we can find courage, help, and strength to live for Him.
Lord, I come to You, the Light of the World. I want You to bring Your light into the darkness of my fears.
For help in overcoming worry, read discoveryseries.org/q0711
You need not fear the darkness if you are walking with the Light of the World.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 06, 2015
Visions Becoming Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool… —Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 06, 2015
The Band and the Master - #7431
We had three kids. They were all in the junior high band at different times over a seven year period of time. So I got to go to seven straight years of junior high band concerts. I enjoyed watching our kids develop musically, but I cannot say it was a memorable music experience. Fortunately, they stuck to pieces that were at their level. But what if they had attempted, say Beethoven, the musical genius.
Just imagine you didn't know much about Beethoven and I invited you to come to one of these band concerts with me? "Hey, they're performing a Beethoven symphony. I know you're going to be impressed with Beethoven's ability!" Now, it's after the concert and I say, "Well, what did you think of Beethoven?" Your response? "Uh, not impressed." "Well, I know there were a lot of squeaks and squawks and instruments missing. But please, please don't judge Beethoven based on the way they played his music. He's a genius. They just don't play his music real well."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Band and the Master."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 1:16-17; two words here that instantly eliminate a lot of confusion and most of the reasons for not giving yourself to Jesus Christ. Here's what it says, "Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee, and He saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow Me' Jesus said. At once they left their nets and followed Him."
Not long after that it records in Mark 2:14, that He came up to Levi, who was a tax collector, and He came to his tax collector's booth and said, "Follow Me." He just kept saying that to people, "Follow Me." In other words Jesus is saying, "I am the issue." That's why one of Christianity's most brilliant minds, the Apostle Paul, said in 1 Corinthians 2:2, "I was determined when I was among you to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He's saying, "This is all about Jesus and Him dying on the cross for you."
See, so many people's objections to Jesus are because, well, honestly Christians you might say don't play His music very well. "People are hypocrites! I've seen those Christians." Really? Was Jesus a hypocrite? "Well, the church is only after money!" Was Jesus only after money? See, the only reason for not being a follower of Jesus is because of a problem you have with Jesus. It's never been about Christianity. It's never been about Christians. It's all about Jesus. If you don't like the inconsistencies in Christianity, neither do I. Neither does Jesus. But that's no reason to put off the Son of God.
Maybe you've been burned by Christianity or Christians somewhere along the way. But it wasn't Jesus who did that. As a bumper sticker says, "Christians aren't perfect, but they're forgiven." Like the junior high band playing the music of Beethoven. We don't always play His music very well, but we're practicing and trying to sound more like Him. But don't reject the Savior who died in your place for your sin because of something that His imperfect followers have done.
When you take your last breath and your heart beats for the last time, it's going to be Jesus you're face to face with. And all that's going to matter is how you responded to His life-changing, life-giving invitation, "Follow Me."
Don't you want to be sure you belong to Him? No one else can get you to heaven, because no one else paid for the sin that will keep you out of heaven. No one else has the power to give you eternal life, because no one else walked out of His grave under His own power except the Savior, Jesus. He's ready to walk into your life.
If you want that to happen for you today and experience this Jesus for yourself, why don't you go to our website ANewStory.com. Or if you want to talk with someone about what it means to follow Christ, text us at 442-244-WORD.
He created you. He opened the way to God by loving you enough to die in your place for your sins. He loves you very, very much. He's been waiting a long time for you. How many more times are there going to be? I don't know. The only guarantee you've got is today.
I know the band isn't perfect, but the Master, Jesus? You can totally trust Him. Haven't you been in the darkness long enough?
Sunday, July 5, 2015
John 5:25-47,Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: He Cares About You
Maybe you don’t want to trouble God with your hurts. After all, “He’s got famines and pestilence and wars. He won’t care about my little struggles,” you think. Why don’t you let Him decide that?
Jesus cared enough about a wedding to provide the wine. He cared enough about the woman at the well to give her answers. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “He cares about you.”
Your first step is to go to the right person. Go to God. Your second step is to assume the right posture. Bow before God. Luke 18:7 reminds us, “God will always give what is right to His people who cry to Him night and day, and He will not be slow to answer them.”
Listen to the prayer in Psalm 25:1-2: “Lord, I give myself to You, my God. I trust You.” So, go…bow…and trust. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?
from Traveling Light
John 5:25-47
“And I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live. 26 The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son. 27 And he has given him authority to judge everyone because he is the Son of Man.[a] 28 Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment. 30 I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.
Witnesses to Jesus
31 “If I were to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be valid. 32 But someone else is also testifying about me, and I assure you that everything he says about me is true. 33 In fact, you sent investigators to listen to John the Baptist, and his testimony about me was true. 34 Of course, I have no need of human witnesses, but I say these things so you might be saved. 35 John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were excited for a while about his message. 36 But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. You have never heard his voice or seen him face to face, 38 and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me—the one he sent to you.
39 “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.
41 “Your approval means nothing to me, 42 because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. 43 For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. 44 No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.[b]
45 “Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. 46 If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 47 But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”
Footnotes:
5:27 “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.
5:44 Some manuscripts read from the only One.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, July 05, 2015
Read: John 6:30-40
They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? 31 After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a]”
32 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. 33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”
35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. 37 However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. 38 For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. 39 And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. 40 For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”
Footnotes:
6:31 Exod 16:4; Ps 78:24.
INSIGHT:
The day after Jesus performed the miracle of feeding thousands of people with just five loaves of bread and two fish, the crowd asked Him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’ ” (John 6:30-31 niv). This question is significant because it was the same group of people (or at least part of that group) that Jesus fed the day before who were now asking for a sign. They claimed their ancestors believed because they ate the bread from heaven. They had just seen Jesus miraculously provide bread for them, but they lacked faith to believe Jesus was who He said He was.
Come to Me
By Anne Cetas
I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger. —John 6:35
When Jesus lived on this earth, He invited people to come to Him, and He still does today (John 6:35). But what do He and His Father in heaven have that we need?
Salvation. Jesus is the only way to have forgiveness of sin and the promise of heaven. “Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:15).
Purpose. We are to give all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength to following Jesus. “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).
Comfort. In trial or sorrow, the “God of all comfort . . . comforts us in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
Wisdom. We need wisdom beyond our own for making decisions. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, . . . and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).
Strength. When we’re weary, “the Lord will give strength to His people” (Ps. 29:11).
Abundant life. The fullest life is found in a relationship with Jesus. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Jesus said, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). Come!
How can I grow closer to God today?
Jesus invites us to come to Him for life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, July 05, 2015
Don’t Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. —Psalm 37:5
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love…thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command— “Let not….” To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
Maybe you don’t want to trouble God with your hurts. After all, “He’s got famines and pestilence and wars. He won’t care about my little struggles,” you think. Why don’t you let Him decide that?
Jesus cared enough about a wedding to provide the wine. He cared enough about the woman at the well to give her answers. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “He cares about you.”
Your first step is to go to the right person. Go to God. Your second step is to assume the right posture. Bow before God. Luke 18:7 reminds us, “God will always give what is right to His people who cry to Him night and day, and He will not be slow to answer them.”
Listen to the prayer in Psalm 25:1-2: “Lord, I give myself to You, my God. I trust You.” So, go…bow…and trust. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?
from Traveling Light
John 5:25-47
“And I assure you that the time is coming, indeed it’s here now, when the dead will hear my voice—the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen will live. 26 The Father has life in himself, and he has granted that same life-giving power to his Son. 27 And he has given him authority to judge everyone because he is the Son of Man.[a] 28 Don’t be so surprised! Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son, 29 and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life, and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgment. 30 I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.
Witnesses to Jesus
31 “If I were to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be valid. 32 But someone else is also testifying about me, and I assure you that everything he says about me is true. 33 In fact, you sent investigators to listen to John the Baptist, and his testimony about me was true. 34 Of course, I have no need of human witnesses, but I say these things so you might be saved. 35 John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were excited for a while about his message. 36 But I have a greater witness than John—my teachings and my miracles. The Father gave me these works to accomplish, and they prove that he sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. You have never heard his voice or seen him face to face, 38 and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me—the one he sent to you.
39 “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! 40 Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.
41 “Your approval means nothing to me, 42 because I know you don’t have God’s love within you. 43 For I have come to you in my Father’s name, and you have rejected me. Yet if others come in their own name, you gladly welcome them. 44 No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.[b]
45 “Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. 46 If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 47 But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”
Footnotes:
5:27 “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.
5:44 Some manuscripts read from the only One.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, July 05, 2015
Read: John 6:30-40
They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? 31 After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a]”
32 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. 33 The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”
35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. 37 However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. 38 For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. 39 And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. 40 For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.”
Footnotes:
6:31 Exod 16:4; Ps 78:24.
INSIGHT:
The day after Jesus performed the miracle of feeding thousands of people with just five loaves of bread and two fish, the crowd asked Him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’ ” (John 6:30-31 niv). This question is significant because it was the same group of people (or at least part of that group) that Jesus fed the day before who were now asking for a sign. They claimed their ancestors believed because they ate the bread from heaven. They had just seen Jesus miraculously provide bread for them, but they lacked faith to believe Jesus was who He said He was.
Come to Me
By Anne Cetas
I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger. —John 6:35
When Jesus lived on this earth, He invited people to come to Him, and He still does today (John 6:35). But what do He and His Father in heaven have that we need?
Salvation. Jesus is the only way to have forgiveness of sin and the promise of heaven. “Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:15).
Purpose. We are to give all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength to following Jesus. “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).
Comfort. In trial or sorrow, the “God of all comfort . . . comforts us in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
Wisdom. We need wisdom beyond our own for making decisions. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, . . . and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).
Strength. When we’re weary, “the Lord will give strength to His people” (Ps. 29:11).
Abundant life. The fullest life is found in a relationship with Jesus. “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Jesus said, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). Come!
How can I grow closer to God today?
Jesus invites us to come to Him for life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, July 05, 2015
Don’t Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. —Psalm 37:5
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love…thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command— “Let not….” To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
2 Samuel 20 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Doesn’t Look Like a Hero
The apostle Paul shaped history. Yet Paul would die in the jail of a despot. No headlines announced his execution. No observer recorded the events. Doesn’t look like a hero. The fellow who changes the oil in your car could be a hero. Maybe as he works he prays, asking God to do with the heart of the driver what he does with the engine. I know, I know…. Doesn’t fit our image of a hero.
John Egglen, a deacon, stepped in and gave the sermon for a few folks who had arrived before a snowstorm that prevented the pastor from getting there. In a moment of courage, he looked straight at a young boy in the service and said, “Look to Jesus. Look!” The boy’s name? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, England’s “prince of preachers.” You never know… tomorrow’s Spurgeon may be in your church or be your neighbor. And the hero who inspires him might be in your mirror!
From When God Whispers Your Name
2 Samuel 20
The Revolt of Sheba
There happened to be a troublemaker there named Sheba son of Bicri, a man from the tribe of Benjamin. Sheba blew a ram’s horn and began to chant:
“Down with the dynasty of David!
We have no interest in the son of Jesse.
Come on, you men of Israel,
back to your homes!”
2 So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stayed with their king and escorted him from the Jordan River to Jerusalem.
3 When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and placed them in seclusion. Their needs were provided for, but he no longer slept with them. So each of them lived like a widow until she died.
4 Then the king told Amasa, “Mobilize the army of Judah within three days, and report back at that time.” 5 So Amasa went out to notify Judah, but it took him longer than the time he had been given.
6 Then David said to Abishai, “Sheba son of Bicri is going to hurt us more than Absalom did. Quick, take my troops and chase after him before he gets into a fortified town where we can’t reach him.”
7 So Abishai and Joab,[g] together with the king’s bodyguard[h] and all the mighty warriors, set out from Jerusalem to go after Sheba. 8 As they arrived at the great stone in Gibeon, Amasa met them. Joab was wearing his military tunic with a dagger strapped to his belt. As he stepped forward to greet Amasa, he slipped the dagger from its sheath.[i]
9 “How are you, my cousin?” Joab said and took him by the beard with his right hand as though to kiss him. 10 Amasa didn’t notice the dagger in his left hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach with it so that his insides gushed out onto the ground. Joab did not need to strike again, and Amasa soon died. Joab and his brother Abishai left him lying there and continued after Sheba.
11 One of Joab’s young men shouted to Amasa’s troops, “If you are for Joab and David, come and follow Joab.” 12 But Amasa lay in his blood in the middle of the road, and Joab’s man saw that everyone was stopping to stare at him. So he pulled him off the road into a field and threw a cloak over him. 13 With Amasa’s body out of the way, everyone went on with Joab to capture Sheba son of Bicri.
14 Meanwhile, Sheba traveled through all the tribes of Israel and eventually came to the town of Abel-beth-maacah. All the members of his own clan, the Bicrites,[j] assembled for battle and followed him into the town. 15 When Joab’s forces arrived, they attacked Abel-beth-maacah. They built a siege ramp against the town’s fortifications and began battering down the wall. 16 But a wise woman in the town called out to Joab, “Listen to me, Joab. Come over here so I can talk to you.” 17 As he approached, the woman asked, “Are you Joab?”
“I am,” he replied.
So she said, “Listen carefully to your servant.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
18 Then she continued, “There used to be a saying, ‘If you want to settle an argument, ask advice at the town of Abel.’ 19 I am one who is peace loving and faithful in Israel. But you are destroying an important town in Israel.[k] Why do you want to devour what belongs to the Lord?”
20 And Joab replied, “Believe me, I don’t want to devour or destroy your town! 21 That’s not my purpose. All I want is a man named Sheba son of Bicri from the hill country of Ephraim, who has revolted against King David. If you hand over this one man to me, I will leave the town in peace.”
“All right,” the woman replied, “we will throw his head over the wall to you.” 22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice, and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the ram’s horn and called his troops back from the attack. They all returned to their homes, and Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem.
23 Now Joab was the commander of the army of Israel. Benaiah son of Jehoiada was captain of the king’s bodyguard. 24 Adoniram[l] was in charge of forced labor. Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the royal historian. 25 Sheva was the court secretary. Zadok and Abiathar were the priests. 26 And Ira, a descendant of Jair, was David’s personal priest.
Footnotes:
20:7a Hebrew So Joab’s men.
20:7b Hebrew the Kerethites and Pelethites; also in 20:23.
20:8 Hebrew As he stepped forward, it fell out.
20:14 As in Greek and Latin versions; Hebrew reads All the Berites.
20:19 Hebrew a town that is a mother in Israel.
20:24 As in Greek version (see also 1 Kgs 4:6; 5:14); Hebrew reads Adoram.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, July 04, 2015
Read: Ezra 1:1-4
Cyrus Allows the Exiles to Return
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia,[a] the Lord fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.[b] He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom:
2 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says:
“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Any of you who are his people may go to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild this Temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives in Jerusalem. And may your God be with you! 4 Wherever this Jewish remnant is found, let their neighbors contribute toward their expenses by giving them silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock, as well as a voluntary offering for the Temple of God in Jerusalem.”
Footnotes:
1:1a The first year of Cyrus’s reign over Babylon was 538 B.c.
1:1b See Jer 25:11-12; 29:10.
INSIGHT:
Ezra is one of the Old Testament books that deals with the Israelites’ return to the land of promise after their exile in Babylon. Along with the books of Nehemiah and Haggai, it focuses on rebuilding Jerusalem, the once proud capital of the southern kingdom. Ezra’s role as a scribe was to rebuild the religious life of the Israelites through the law of Moses. In Nehemiah, the focus is on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to once again make it a safe haven for the people. Haggai’s focus some years later was on the importance of rebuilding the temple, the center of the Israelites’ national life.
The Cyrus Cylinder
By Dave Branon
The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. —Ezra 1:1
In 1879, archaeologists discovered a remarkable little item in an area now known as Iraq (biblical Babylon). Just 9 inches long, the Cyrus Cylinder records something that King Cyrus of Persia did 2,500 years ago. It says that Cyrus allowed a group of people to return to their homeland and rebuild their “holy cities.”
It’s the same story told in Ezra 1. There we read that “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” to make a proclamation (v. 1). And in that proclamation, Cyrus said he was releasing the captives in Babylon to go home to Jerusalem, re-establish their homes, and rebuild their temple (vv. 2-5).
But there’s more to the story. Daniel confessed his sins and his people’s sins and pleaded with God to end the Babylonian captivity (Dan. 9). In response to Daniel’s prayer, God sent an angel to speak to Daniel (v. 21). Later He moved Cyrus to release the Hebrews. (See also Jer. 25:11-12; 39:10.)
Together, the Cyrus Cylinder and God’s Word combine to show us that the king’s heart was changed and he allowed the exiled Hebrews to go home and worship.
This story has great implications for us today. In a world that seems out of control, we can rest assured that God can move the hearts of leaders. We read in Proverbs 21:1 that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.” And Romans 13:1 says that “there is no authority except from God.”
The Lord, who is able to change our own hearts as well as the hearts of our leaders, can be trusted for He is in control. Let’s ask Him to work.
Dear Father, the world so often seems out of control. We know You are sovereign over everything. We pray that Your will be done in our homeland and in the hearts of our leaders.
Rather than complain, pray.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, July 04, 2015
One of God’s Great “Don’ts”
Do not fret— it only causes harm. —Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves “out of joint” mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, “Do not fret,” but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It’s easy to say, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to “rest in the Lord” then? If this “Do not” doesn’t work there, then it will not work anywhere. This “Do not” must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
The apostle Paul shaped history. Yet Paul would die in the jail of a despot. No headlines announced his execution. No observer recorded the events. Doesn’t look like a hero. The fellow who changes the oil in your car could be a hero. Maybe as he works he prays, asking God to do with the heart of the driver what he does with the engine. I know, I know…. Doesn’t fit our image of a hero.
John Egglen, a deacon, stepped in and gave the sermon for a few folks who had arrived before a snowstorm that prevented the pastor from getting there. In a moment of courage, he looked straight at a young boy in the service and said, “Look to Jesus. Look!” The boy’s name? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, England’s “prince of preachers.” You never know… tomorrow’s Spurgeon may be in your church or be your neighbor. And the hero who inspires him might be in your mirror!
From When God Whispers Your Name
2 Samuel 20
The Revolt of Sheba
There happened to be a troublemaker there named Sheba son of Bicri, a man from the tribe of Benjamin. Sheba blew a ram’s horn and began to chant:
“Down with the dynasty of David!
We have no interest in the son of Jesse.
Come on, you men of Israel,
back to your homes!”
2 So all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bicri. But the men of Judah stayed with their king and escorted him from the Jordan River to Jerusalem.
3 When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to look after the palace and placed them in seclusion. Their needs were provided for, but he no longer slept with them. So each of them lived like a widow until she died.
4 Then the king told Amasa, “Mobilize the army of Judah within three days, and report back at that time.” 5 So Amasa went out to notify Judah, but it took him longer than the time he had been given.
6 Then David said to Abishai, “Sheba son of Bicri is going to hurt us more than Absalom did. Quick, take my troops and chase after him before he gets into a fortified town where we can’t reach him.”
7 So Abishai and Joab,[g] together with the king’s bodyguard[h] and all the mighty warriors, set out from Jerusalem to go after Sheba. 8 As they arrived at the great stone in Gibeon, Amasa met them. Joab was wearing his military tunic with a dagger strapped to his belt. As he stepped forward to greet Amasa, he slipped the dagger from its sheath.[i]
9 “How are you, my cousin?” Joab said and took him by the beard with his right hand as though to kiss him. 10 Amasa didn’t notice the dagger in his left hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach with it so that his insides gushed out onto the ground. Joab did not need to strike again, and Amasa soon died. Joab and his brother Abishai left him lying there and continued after Sheba.
11 One of Joab’s young men shouted to Amasa’s troops, “If you are for Joab and David, come and follow Joab.” 12 But Amasa lay in his blood in the middle of the road, and Joab’s man saw that everyone was stopping to stare at him. So he pulled him off the road into a field and threw a cloak over him. 13 With Amasa’s body out of the way, everyone went on with Joab to capture Sheba son of Bicri.
14 Meanwhile, Sheba traveled through all the tribes of Israel and eventually came to the town of Abel-beth-maacah. All the members of his own clan, the Bicrites,[j] assembled for battle and followed him into the town. 15 When Joab’s forces arrived, they attacked Abel-beth-maacah. They built a siege ramp against the town’s fortifications and began battering down the wall. 16 But a wise woman in the town called out to Joab, “Listen to me, Joab. Come over here so I can talk to you.” 17 As he approached, the woman asked, “Are you Joab?”
“I am,” he replied.
So she said, “Listen carefully to your servant.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
18 Then she continued, “There used to be a saying, ‘If you want to settle an argument, ask advice at the town of Abel.’ 19 I am one who is peace loving and faithful in Israel. But you are destroying an important town in Israel.[k] Why do you want to devour what belongs to the Lord?”
20 And Joab replied, “Believe me, I don’t want to devour or destroy your town! 21 That’s not my purpose. All I want is a man named Sheba son of Bicri from the hill country of Ephraim, who has revolted against King David. If you hand over this one man to me, I will leave the town in peace.”
“All right,” the woman replied, “we will throw his head over the wall to you.” 22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice, and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the ram’s horn and called his troops back from the attack. They all returned to their homes, and Joab returned to the king at Jerusalem.
23 Now Joab was the commander of the army of Israel. Benaiah son of Jehoiada was captain of the king’s bodyguard. 24 Adoniram[l] was in charge of forced labor. Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the royal historian. 25 Sheva was the court secretary. Zadok and Abiathar were the priests. 26 And Ira, a descendant of Jair, was David’s personal priest.
Footnotes:
20:7a Hebrew So Joab’s men.
20:7b Hebrew the Kerethites and Pelethites; also in 20:23.
20:8 Hebrew As he stepped forward, it fell out.
20:14 As in Greek and Latin versions; Hebrew reads All the Berites.
20:19 Hebrew a town that is a mother in Israel.
20:24 As in Greek version (see also 1 Kgs 4:6; 5:14); Hebrew reads Adoram.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, July 04, 2015
Read: Ezra 1:1-4
Cyrus Allows the Exiles to Return
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia,[a] the Lord fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.[b] He stirred the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom:
2 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says:
“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Any of you who are his people may go to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild this Temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives in Jerusalem. And may your God be with you! 4 Wherever this Jewish remnant is found, let their neighbors contribute toward their expenses by giving them silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock, as well as a voluntary offering for the Temple of God in Jerusalem.”
Footnotes:
1:1a The first year of Cyrus’s reign over Babylon was 538 B.c.
1:1b See Jer 25:11-12; 29:10.
INSIGHT:
Ezra is one of the Old Testament books that deals with the Israelites’ return to the land of promise after their exile in Babylon. Along with the books of Nehemiah and Haggai, it focuses on rebuilding Jerusalem, the once proud capital of the southern kingdom. Ezra’s role as a scribe was to rebuild the religious life of the Israelites through the law of Moses. In Nehemiah, the focus is on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem to once again make it a safe haven for the people. Haggai’s focus some years later was on the importance of rebuilding the temple, the center of the Israelites’ national life.
The Cyrus Cylinder
By Dave Branon
The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. —Ezra 1:1
In 1879, archaeologists discovered a remarkable little item in an area now known as Iraq (biblical Babylon). Just 9 inches long, the Cyrus Cylinder records something that King Cyrus of Persia did 2,500 years ago. It says that Cyrus allowed a group of people to return to their homeland and rebuild their “holy cities.”
It’s the same story told in Ezra 1. There we read that “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” to make a proclamation (v. 1). And in that proclamation, Cyrus said he was releasing the captives in Babylon to go home to Jerusalem, re-establish their homes, and rebuild their temple (vv. 2-5).
But there’s more to the story. Daniel confessed his sins and his people’s sins and pleaded with God to end the Babylonian captivity (Dan. 9). In response to Daniel’s prayer, God sent an angel to speak to Daniel (v. 21). Later He moved Cyrus to release the Hebrews. (See also Jer. 25:11-12; 39:10.)
Together, the Cyrus Cylinder and God’s Word combine to show us that the king’s heart was changed and he allowed the exiled Hebrews to go home and worship.
This story has great implications for us today. In a world that seems out of control, we can rest assured that God can move the hearts of leaders. We read in Proverbs 21:1 that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.” And Romans 13:1 says that “there is no authority except from God.”
The Lord, who is able to change our own hearts as well as the hearts of our leaders, can be trusted for He is in control. Let’s ask Him to work.
Dear Father, the world so often seems out of control. We know You are sovereign over everything. We pray that Your will be done in our homeland and in the hearts of our leaders.
Rather than complain, pray.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, July 04, 2015
One of God’s Great “Don’ts”
Do not fret— it only causes harm. —Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves “out of joint” mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, “Do not fret,” but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It’s easy to say, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to “rest in the Lord” then? If this “Do not” doesn’t work there, then it will not work anywhere. This “Do not” must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
Friday, July 3, 2015
2 Samuel 19, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: The Spite House ·
In 1882 in New York City, Joseph Richardson owned a narrow strip of land 5 feet wide and 104 feet long. Next door was a normal-sized lot owned by a man who wanted to erect an apartment building. He offered Richardson $1,000 for his plot. Deeply offended, Richardson demanded $5,000 which the builder refused to pay. The builder built the apartment building, assuming the slender lot would remain vacant and the view exposed. But Richardson built a house instead—blocking the view! Dubbed the “Spite House”, Richardson spent the last fourteen years of his life in the narrow residence that seemed to fit his narrow state of mind.
Revenge builds a lonely, narrow house. Space enough for one person. No wonder God insists we “keep a sharp eye out for the weeds of bitter discontent!” (Heb. 12:14-17).
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Samuel 19
Joab Rebukes the King
[a]Word soon reached Joab that the king was weeping and mourning for Absalom. 2 As all the people heard of the king’s deep grief for his son, the joy of that day’s victory was turned into deep sadness. 3 They crept back into the town that day as though they were ashamed and had deserted in battle. 4 The king covered his face with his hands and kept on crying, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”
5 Then Joab went to the king’s room and said to him, “We saved your life today and the lives of your sons, your daughters, and your wives and concubines. Yet you act like this, making us feel ashamed of ourselves. 6 You seem to love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have made it clear today that your commanders and troops mean nothing to you. It seems that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died, you would be pleased. 7 Now go out there and congratulate your troops, for I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a single one of them will remain here tonight. Then you will be worse off than ever before.”
8 So the king went out and took his seat at the town gate, and as the news spread throughout the town that he was there, everyone went to him.
Meanwhile, the Israelites who had supported Absalom fled to their homes. 9 And throughout all the tribes of Israel there was much discussion and argument going on. The people were saying, “The king rescued us from our enemies and saved us from the Philistines, but Absalom chased him out of the country. 10 Now Absalom, whom we anointed to rule over us, is dead. Why not ask David to come back and be our king again?”
11 Then King David sent Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, to say to the elders of Judah, “Why are you the last ones to welcome back the king into his palace? For I have heard that all Israel is ready. 12 You are my relatives, my own tribe, my own flesh and blood! So why are you the last ones to welcome back the king?” 13 And David told them to tell Amasa, “Since you are my own flesh and blood, like Joab, may God strike me and even kill me if I do not appoint you as commander of my army in his place.”
14 Then Amasa[b] convinced all the men of Judah, and they responded unanimously. They sent word to the king, “Return to us, and bring back all who are with you.”
David’s Return to Jerusalem
15 So the king started back to Jerusalem. And when he arrived at the Jordan River, the people of Judah came to Gilgal to meet him and escort him across the river. 16 Shimei son of Gera, the man from Bahurim in Benjamin, hurried across with the men of Judah to welcome King David. 17 A thousand other men from the tribe of Benjamin were with him, including Ziba, the chief servant of the house of Saul, and Ziba’s fifteen sons and twenty servants. They rushed down to the Jordan to meet the king. 18 They crossed the shallows of the Jordan to bring the king’s household across the river, helping him in every way they could.
David’s Mercy to Shimei
As the king was about to cross the river, Shimei fell down before him. 19 “My lord the king, please forgive me,” he pleaded. “Forget the terrible thing your servant did when you left Jerusalem. May the king put it out of his mind. 20 I know how much I sinned. That is why I have come here today, the very first person in all Israel[c] to greet my lord the king.”
21 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said, “Shimei should die, for he cursed the Lord’s anointed king!”
22 “Who asked your opinion, you sons of Zeruiah!” David exclaimed. “Why have you become my adversary[d] today? This is not a day for execution, for today I am once again the king of Israel!” 23 Then, turning to Shimei, David vowed, “Your life will be spared.”
David’s Kindness to Mephibosheth
24 Now Mephibosheth,[e] Saul’s grandson, came down from Jerusalem to meet the king. He had not cared for his feet, trimmed his beard, or washed his clothes since the day the king left Jerusalem. 25 “Why didn’t you come with me, Mephibosheth?” the king asked him.
26 Mephibosheth replied, “My lord the king, my servant Ziba deceived me. I told him, ‘Saddle my donkey[f] so I can go with the king.’ For as you know I am crippled. 27 Ziba has slandered me by saying that I refused to come. But I know that my lord the king is like an angel of God, so do what you think is best. 28 All my relatives and I could expect only death from you, my lord, but instead you have honored me by allowing me to eat at your own table! What more can I ask?”
29 “You’ve said enough,” David replied. “I’ve decided that you and Ziba will divide your land equally between you.”
30 “Give him all of it,” Mephibosheth said. “I am content just to have you safely back again, my lord the king!”
David’s Kindness to Barzillai
31 Barzillai of Gilead had come down from Rogelim to escort the king across the Jordan. 32 He was very old—eighty years of age—and very wealthy. He was the one who had provided food for the king during his stay in Mahanaim. 33 “Come across with me and live in Jerusalem,” the king said to Barzillai. “I will take care of you there.”
34 “No,” he replied, “I am far too old to go with the king to Jerusalem. 35 I am eighty years old today, and I can no longer enjoy anything. Food and wine are no longer tasty, and I cannot hear the singers as they sing. I would only be a burden to my lord the king. 36 Just to go across the Jordan River with the king is all the honor I need! 37 Then let me return again to die in my own town, where my father and mother are buried. But here is your servant, my son Kimham. Let him go with my lord the king and receive whatever you want to give him.”
38 “Good,” the king agreed. “Kimham will go with me, and I will help him in any way you would like. And I will do for you anything you want.” 39 So all the people crossed the Jordan with the king. After David had blessed Barzillai and kissed him, Barzillai returned to his own home.
40 The king then crossed over to Gilgal, taking Kimham with him. All the troops of Judah and half the troops of Israel escorted the king on his way.
An Argument over the King
41 But all the men of Israel complained to the king, “The men of Judah stole the king and didn’t give us the honor of helping take you, your household, and all your men across the Jordan.”
42 The men of Judah replied, “The king is one of our own kinsmen. Why should this make you angry? We haven’t eaten any of the king’s food or received any special favors!”
43 “But there are ten tribes in Israel,” the others replied. “So we have ten times as much right to the king as you do. What right do you have to treat us with such contempt? Weren’t we the first to speak of bringing him back to be our king again?” The argument continued back and forth, and the men of Judah spoke even more harshly than the men of Israel.
Footnotes:
19:1 Verses 19:1-43 are numbered 19:2-44 in Hebrew text.
19:14 Or David; Hebrew reads he.
19:20 Hebrew in the house of Joseph.
19:22 Or my prosecutor.
19:24 Mephibosheth is another name for Merib-baal.
19:26 As in Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions; Hebrew reads I will saddle a donkey for myself.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 03, 2015
Read: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: 2 Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.
3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth and chase after myths.
5 But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.
6 As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 8 And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.
INSIGHT:
Titus and 1 Timothy were probably written after the apostle Paul was released from house arrest in Rome (ad 61-62) and during his fourth missionary journey (ad 62–63; see Acts 28:30-31). When persecution broke out under Emperor Nero, Paul was imprisoned again. During this second Roman imprisonment, Paul wrote 2 Timothy (ad 65-67). This time he knew his death was imminent (4:6-7). Paul warns that a time is coming when Christians will not “endure sound doctrine” and will turn away from the truth (vv. 3-7). To counter false teaching, Timothy is to “preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (v. 2).
A Letter from the Battlefield
By David C. McCasland
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. —2 Timothy 4:7
For more than two decades, Andrew Carroll has been urging people not to throw away the letters written by family members or friends during a time of war. Carroll, director of the Center for American War Letters at Chapman University in California, considers them an irreplaceable link to tie families together and open a door of understanding. “Younger generations are reading these letters,” Carroll says, “and asking questions and saying, ‘Now I understand what you endured, what you sacrificed.’ ”
When the apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome and knew his life would soon end, he wrote a letter to a young man whom he considered a “son in the faith,” Timothy. Like a soldier on the battlefield, Paul opened his heart to him: “The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).
When we read the letters in the Bible that the heroes of the Christian faith have left for us and grasp what they endured because of their love for Christ, we gain courage to follow their example and to stand strong for those who come after us.
Lord, give us strength for the spiritual battles we face today, knowing that You have won the ultimate victory and that we will one day live eternally with You.
Run the race with eternity in view.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, July 03, 2015
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… —Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind’s attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone’s life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, “I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong,” but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was “a man of unclean lips.” “He touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ ” (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 03, 2015
Never Surrender - #7430
If you're from Texas, you know that Alamo is more than just a rental car agency. The Alamo, you know, is that old Spanish Mission in the heart of downtown San Antonio where an estimated 200 brave freedom fighters took their stand against the army of Mexico in the battle for Texas independence. Now, I've been there and I've seen the Alamo. And on my last visit, I was moved again by the sacrifice that those people made. They gave their lives for the cause of freedom. But only after inflicting heavy losses on the enemy army and inspiring what turned out to be the ultimate victory with the Texas battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!"
Now, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis was in command of the garrison that day as his valiant band stood against those overwhelming odds. I was really moved as I read the letter that Colonel Travis wrote addressed to The People of Texas and all Americans. In fact, I was so moved, I read part of it to the 5,000 young people I spoke to that night. He said, "The enemy has demanded a surrender. Otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken." Listen to this, "I have answered the demand with a cannon shot! And our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat."
Man, that's more than history. That's a battle cry for you and me.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Never Surrender."
In the spiritual battle raging all around you, your enemy the Devil keeps calling for you to surrender to discouragement, to despair, to bitterness, to disobedience, to retreat. And during those grueling days when Satan tried to get our Lord to surrender to temptation, we learn how you can answer those temptations.
Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 4, "...for forty days Jesus was tempted by the Devil" it says. "He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. The Devil said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.'" In other words, "You've got this need, right? Why don't you do something to meet your need, even if it's a little outside of what God wants you to do?"
Jesus answered that call for surrender with a cannon shot. "It is written, 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" Jesus answers the heavy artillery of hell with a statement from the Word of God; the heavier artillery of heaven. Now, Satan then takes Jesus to a mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world. He offers them to Jesus, "If you worship me, it will all be yours." In other words, "Just bow down. No cross to go to. You could have it all. It could be easy, without all the pain." Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" Again the temptation to surrender is answered with a cannonball of God's Word.
It could be that the enemy is working overtime right now to deceive you into some moral or spiritual compromise, retreat, surrender. He's saying something like, "Things are dark, and I don't know that they're ever going to change." He's wanting to discourage you. Or maybe he's trying to say, "You know, you could really benefit from just a little compromise; just giving in a little to this temptation. It's wrong, but it might help you right now. Surrender to temptation." Maybe your enemy's saying, "Oh listen, there's no hope for this marriage, man. Surrender to divorce." "There's no hope of an answer. Surrender to taking charge of things yourself. Surrender to self-solutions or giving up." Or, "Hey, if you take a stand for Jesus, it's going to cost you too much, man. You'd better surrender to backing down on this Jesus thing."
As Colonel Travis so dramatically demonstrated at the Alamo, when the enemy calls for surrender, you cannot answer that passively. You have to answer aggressively - boldly. Go to God's words about that issue in the Bible and you use God's own words "like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces..." it says in the Bible, or like a cannonball.
Stand on God's truths. Stand in God's strength, in Jesus' name. He sent me to tell you to take your stand right now. And declare it boldly, "The flag of Jesus still flies proudly from these walls. I shall never surrender or retreat!"
In 1882 in New York City, Joseph Richardson owned a narrow strip of land 5 feet wide and 104 feet long. Next door was a normal-sized lot owned by a man who wanted to erect an apartment building. He offered Richardson $1,000 for his plot. Deeply offended, Richardson demanded $5,000 which the builder refused to pay. The builder built the apartment building, assuming the slender lot would remain vacant and the view exposed. But Richardson built a house instead—blocking the view! Dubbed the “Spite House”, Richardson spent the last fourteen years of his life in the narrow residence that seemed to fit his narrow state of mind.
Revenge builds a lonely, narrow house. Space enough for one person. No wonder God insists we “keep a sharp eye out for the weeds of bitter discontent!” (Heb. 12:14-17).
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Samuel 19
Joab Rebukes the King
[a]Word soon reached Joab that the king was weeping and mourning for Absalom. 2 As all the people heard of the king’s deep grief for his son, the joy of that day’s victory was turned into deep sadness. 3 They crept back into the town that day as though they were ashamed and had deserted in battle. 4 The king covered his face with his hands and kept on crying, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!”
5 Then Joab went to the king’s room and said to him, “We saved your life today and the lives of your sons, your daughters, and your wives and concubines. Yet you act like this, making us feel ashamed of ourselves. 6 You seem to love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have made it clear today that your commanders and troops mean nothing to you. It seems that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died, you would be pleased. 7 Now go out there and congratulate your troops, for I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a single one of them will remain here tonight. Then you will be worse off than ever before.”
8 So the king went out and took his seat at the town gate, and as the news spread throughout the town that he was there, everyone went to him.
Meanwhile, the Israelites who had supported Absalom fled to their homes. 9 And throughout all the tribes of Israel there was much discussion and argument going on. The people were saying, “The king rescued us from our enemies and saved us from the Philistines, but Absalom chased him out of the country. 10 Now Absalom, whom we anointed to rule over us, is dead. Why not ask David to come back and be our king again?”
11 Then King David sent Zadok and Abiathar, the priests, to say to the elders of Judah, “Why are you the last ones to welcome back the king into his palace? For I have heard that all Israel is ready. 12 You are my relatives, my own tribe, my own flesh and blood! So why are you the last ones to welcome back the king?” 13 And David told them to tell Amasa, “Since you are my own flesh and blood, like Joab, may God strike me and even kill me if I do not appoint you as commander of my army in his place.”
14 Then Amasa[b] convinced all the men of Judah, and they responded unanimously. They sent word to the king, “Return to us, and bring back all who are with you.”
David’s Return to Jerusalem
15 So the king started back to Jerusalem. And when he arrived at the Jordan River, the people of Judah came to Gilgal to meet him and escort him across the river. 16 Shimei son of Gera, the man from Bahurim in Benjamin, hurried across with the men of Judah to welcome King David. 17 A thousand other men from the tribe of Benjamin were with him, including Ziba, the chief servant of the house of Saul, and Ziba’s fifteen sons and twenty servants. They rushed down to the Jordan to meet the king. 18 They crossed the shallows of the Jordan to bring the king’s household across the river, helping him in every way they could.
David’s Mercy to Shimei
As the king was about to cross the river, Shimei fell down before him. 19 “My lord the king, please forgive me,” he pleaded. “Forget the terrible thing your servant did when you left Jerusalem. May the king put it out of his mind. 20 I know how much I sinned. That is why I have come here today, the very first person in all Israel[c] to greet my lord the king.”
21 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said, “Shimei should die, for he cursed the Lord’s anointed king!”
22 “Who asked your opinion, you sons of Zeruiah!” David exclaimed. “Why have you become my adversary[d] today? This is not a day for execution, for today I am once again the king of Israel!” 23 Then, turning to Shimei, David vowed, “Your life will be spared.”
David’s Kindness to Mephibosheth
24 Now Mephibosheth,[e] Saul’s grandson, came down from Jerusalem to meet the king. He had not cared for his feet, trimmed his beard, or washed his clothes since the day the king left Jerusalem. 25 “Why didn’t you come with me, Mephibosheth?” the king asked him.
26 Mephibosheth replied, “My lord the king, my servant Ziba deceived me. I told him, ‘Saddle my donkey[f] so I can go with the king.’ For as you know I am crippled. 27 Ziba has slandered me by saying that I refused to come. But I know that my lord the king is like an angel of God, so do what you think is best. 28 All my relatives and I could expect only death from you, my lord, but instead you have honored me by allowing me to eat at your own table! What more can I ask?”
29 “You’ve said enough,” David replied. “I’ve decided that you and Ziba will divide your land equally between you.”
30 “Give him all of it,” Mephibosheth said. “I am content just to have you safely back again, my lord the king!”
David’s Kindness to Barzillai
31 Barzillai of Gilead had come down from Rogelim to escort the king across the Jordan. 32 He was very old—eighty years of age—and very wealthy. He was the one who had provided food for the king during his stay in Mahanaim. 33 “Come across with me and live in Jerusalem,” the king said to Barzillai. “I will take care of you there.”
34 “No,” he replied, “I am far too old to go with the king to Jerusalem. 35 I am eighty years old today, and I can no longer enjoy anything. Food and wine are no longer tasty, and I cannot hear the singers as they sing. I would only be a burden to my lord the king. 36 Just to go across the Jordan River with the king is all the honor I need! 37 Then let me return again to die in my own town, where my father and mother are buried. But here is your servant, my son Kimham. Let him go with my lord the king and receive whatever you want to give him.”
38 “Good,” the king agreed. “Kimham will go with me, and I will help him in any way you would like. And I will do for you anything you want.” 39 So all the people crossed the Jordan with the king. After David had blessed Barzillai and kissed him, Barzillai returned to his own home.
40 The king then crossed over to Gilgal, taking Kimham with him. All the troops of Judah and half the troops of Israel escorted the king on his way.
An Argument over the King
41 But all the men of Israel complained to the king, “The men of Judah stole the king and didn’t give us the honor of helping take you, your household, and all your men across the Jordan.”
42 The men of Judah replied, “The king is one of our own kinsmen. Why should this make you angry? We haven’t eaten any of the king’s food or received any special favors!”
43 “But there are ten tribes in Israel,” the others replied. “So we have ten times as much right to the king as you do. What right do you have to treat us with such contempt? Weren’t we the first to speak of bringing him back to be our king again?” The argument continued back and forth, and the men of Judah spoke even more harshly than the men of Israel.
Footnotes:
19:1 Verses 19:1-43 are numbered 19:2-44 in Hebrew text.
19:14 Or David; Hebrew reads he.
19:20 Hebrew in the house of Joseph.
19:22 Or my prosecutor.
19:24 Mephibosheth is another name for Merib-baal.
19:26 As in Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions; Hebrew reads I will saddle a donkey for myself.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 03, 2015
Read: 2 Timothy 4:1-8
I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: 2 Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.
3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth and chase after myths.
5 But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.
6 As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 8 And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.
INSIGHT:
Titus and 1 Timothy were probably written after the apostle Paul was released from house arrest in Rome (ad 61-62) and during his fourth missionary journey (ad 62–63; see Acts 28:30-31). When persecution broke out under Emperor Nero, Paul was imprisoned again. During this second Roman imprisonment, Paul wrote 2 Timothy (ad 65-67). This time he knew his death was imminent (4:6-7). Paul warns that a time is coming when Christians will not “endure sound doctrine” and will turn away from the truth (vv. 3-7). To counter false teaching, Timothy is to “preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (v. 2).
A Letter from the Battlefield
By David C. McCasland
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. —2 Timothy 4:7
For more than two decades, Andrew Carroll has been urging people not to throw away the letters written by family members or friends during a time of war. Carroll, director of the Center for American War Letters at Chapman University in California, considers them an irreplaceable link to tie families together and open a door of understanding. “Younger generations are reading these letters,” Carroll says, “and asking questions and saying, ‘Now I understand what you endured, what you sacrificed.’ ”
When the apostle Paul was imprisoned in Rome and knew his life would soon end, he wrote a letter to a young man whom he considered a “son in the faith,” Timothy. Like a soldier on the battlefield, Paul opened his heart to him: “The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).
When we read the letters in the Bible that the heroes of the Christian faith have left for us and grasp what they endured because of their love for Christ, we gain courage to follow their example and to stand strong for those who come after us.
Lord, give us strength for the spiritual battles we face today, knowing that You have won the ultimate victory and that we will one day live eternally with You.
Run the race with eternity in view.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, July 03, 2015
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… —Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind’s attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone’s life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, “I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong,” but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was “a man of unclean lips.” “He touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ ” (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 03, 2015
Never Surrender - #7430
If you're from Texas, you know that Alamo is more than just a rental car agency. The Alamo, you know, is that old Spanish Mission in the heart of downtown San Antonio where an estimated 200 brave freedom fighters took their stand against the army of Mexico in the battle for Texas independence. Now, I've been there and I've seen the Alamo. And on my last visit, I was moved again by the sacrifice that those people made. They gave their lives for the cause of freedom. But only after inflicting heavy losses on the enemy army and inspiring what turned out to be the ultimate victory with the Texas battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!"
Now, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis was in command of the garrison that day as his valiant band stood against those overwhelming odds. I was really moved as I read the letter that Colonel Travis wrote addressed to The People of Texas and all Americans. In fact, I was so moved, I read part of it to the 5,000 young people I spoke to that night. He said, "The enemy has demanded a surrender. Otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken." Listen to this, "I have answered the demand with a cannon shot! And our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat."
Man, that's more than history. That's a battle cry for you and me.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Never Surrender."
In the spiritual battle raging all around you, your enemy the Devil keeps calling for you to surrender to discouragement, to despair, to bitterness, to disobedience, to retreat. And during those grueling days when Satan tried to get our Lord to surrender to temptation, we learn how you can answer those temptations.
Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 4, "...for forty days Jesus was tempted by the Devil" it says. "He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry. The Devil said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.'" In other words, "You've got this need, right? Why don't you do something to meet your need, even if it's a little outside of what God wants you to do?"
Jesus answered that call for surrender with a cannon shot. "It is written, 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" Jesus answers the heavy artillery of hell with a statement from the Word of God; the heavier artillery of heaven. Now, Satan then takes Jesus to a mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world. He offers them to Jesus, "If you worship me, it will all be yours." In other words, "Just bow down. No cross to go to. You could have it all. It could be easy, without all the pain." Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" Again the temptation to surrender is answered with a cannonball of God's Word.
It could be that the enemy is working overtime right now to deceive you into some moral or spiritual compromise, retreat, surrender. He's saying something like, "Things are dark, and I don't know that they're ever going to change." He's wanting to discourage you. Or maybe he's trying to say, "You know, you could really benefit from just a little compromise; just giving in a little to this temptation. It's wrong, but it might help you right now. Surrender to temptation." Maybe your enemy's saying, "Oh listen, there's no hope for this marriage, man. Surrender to divorce." "There's no hope of an answer. Surrender to taking charge of things yourself. Surrender to self-solutions or giving up." Or, "Hey, if you take a stand for Jesus, it's going to cost you too much, man. You'd better surrender to backing down on this Jesus thing."
As Colonel Travis so dramatically demonstrated at the Alamo, when the enemy calls for surrender, you cannot answer that passively. You have to answer aggressively - boldly. Go to God's words about that issue in the Bible and you use God's own words "like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces..." it says in the Bible, or like a cannonball.
Stand on God's truths. Stand in God's strength, in Jesus' name. He sent me to tell you to take your stand right now. And declare it boldly, "The flag of Jesus still flies proudly from these walls. I shall never surrender or retreat!"
Thursday, July 2, 2015
John 5:1-24, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God's Transforming Power
Family pain is often the deepest pain because it was inflicted so early, and because it involves people who should have been trustworthy. You were too young to process the mistreatment. You didn't know how to defend yourself. Besides the perpetrators of your pain were so large. Your dad, mom, uncle, big brother-they towered over you, usually in size, always in rank. When they judged you falsely, you believed them. All this time you've been operating on faulty data. "You're stupid. . .slow. . .dumb, like your daddy.
Decades later these voices of defeat still echo in your subconscious. But they don't have to! Romans 12:2 says, "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." And 1st Corinthians 13:11 adds, "Let Him replace childish thinking with mature truth!" You are not who they said you were. You are God's child!
From You'll Get Through This
John 5:1-24
Jesus Heals a Lame Man
Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda,[a] with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”
11 But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
Jesus Claims to Be the Son of God
16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing[c] Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. 21 For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants. 22 In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, 23 so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him.
24 “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
Footnotes:
5:2 Other manuscripts read Beth-zatha; still others read Bethsaida.
5:3 Some manuscripts add an expanded conclusion to verse 3 and all of verse 4: waiting for a certain movement of the water, 4 for an angel of the Lord came from time to time and stirred up the water. And the first person to step in after the water was stirred was healed of whatever disease he had.
5:16 Or persecuting.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Read: James 3:2-10
Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.
3 We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. 4 And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.
But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. 6 And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.[a]
7 People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!
Footnotes:
3:6 Or for it will burn in hell (Greek Gehenna).
INSIGHT:
The book of James is often referred to as “the Proverbs of the New Testament.” The emphasis on wisdom and behavior throughout its five brief chapters makes the comparison understandable. James’s well-known warning about the explosive threat hiding behind our lips is sandwiched between verses about the relationship between faith and deeds (2:14-26) and between wisdom and deeds (3:13-18). It seems that James is suggesting that faith and wisdom are both significantly demonstrated in our ability to control our tongue. In other words, our speech puts our faith and our wisdom on display for everyone to see.
Fiery Conversation
By Lawrence Darmani
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt. —Colossians 4:6
Where I come from in northern Ghana, bush fires are regular occurrences in the dry season between December and March. I’ve witnessed many acres of farmland set ablaze when the winds carried tiny embers from fireplaces or from cigarette butts carelessly thrown by the roadside. With the dry grassland vegetation, all that is needed to start a devastating fire is a little spark.
That is how James describes the tongue, calling it “a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6 niv). A false statement made here or backbiting there, a vicious remark somewhere else, and relationships are destroyed. “The words of the reckless pierce like swords,” says Proverbs 12:18, “but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (niv). Just as fire has both destructive and useful elements, so “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (18:21).
For conversation that reflects God’s presence in us and pleases Him, let it “always be with grace” (Col. 4:6). When expressing our opinions during disagreements, let’s ask God to help us choose wholesome language that brings honor to Him.
Guide my conversation today, Lord. May the words I choose bless and encourage others and build them up rather than tear them down. May You be pleased with what You hear.
Anger can make us speak our mind when we should be minding our speech.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 02, 2015
The Conditions of Discipleship
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also….And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me….So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. —Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple’s life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person— our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause— He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has “poured out in our hearts” the very “love of God” (Romans 5:5). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, July 02, 2015
How to be the Person They'll Never Forget - #7429
Missy lost her mother yesterday and Andy's wife filed for divorce today. A friend texted recently, heartbroken over his sister-in-law's cancer verdict. Some reservation friends of ours are grieving over one young suicide after another.
It just seems that we always know someone who's walking their own personal "trail of tears." Some weeks I think we could be sending a sympathy card like every day. And we've taken our turn. No family is immune. Bad news from the doctor. Burying someone we dearly love. A broken heart over a life that's broken. And you know what? We never forgot the person who was there when it was dark.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to be the Person They'll Never Forget."
My wife and I are honored to call many wonderful Cherokee friends our brothers and sisters. Some are really like family. And you can't be with Cherokees for very long without recollections of their people's darkest hour; one of the most infamous chapters in our nation's history. You've probably heard of it - The Trail of Tears.
The forced removal from their ancestral homelands. The brutal stockade imprisonments, and then the 800-mile Trail of Tears under military guard in a horrific six-month walk through one of the fiercest winters in American history. An estimated one-fourth of the Cherokee Nation died on or because of the Trail of Tears. I've stood with Cherokee friends at unmarked graves where some of those people are buried. I'll tell you what, I've wiped my eyes as they sang in Cherokee, the hymn that sustained their people amid all the dying - "Amazing Grace."
There were people on that trail who didn't have to be there; missionaries who loved the Cherokee people, who represented Jesus among the Cherokees. And now, who chose to be by their side, sharing their suffering.
There's a nearly 200-year old mission church on Cherokee land in Oklahoma today. But it wasn't built in Oklahoma. It was built in Georgia. And I'm told that the missionaries had so won the respect of the people that the chief actually ordered that the mission be dismantled and moved with the people. See, you never forget the person who walked with you on your trail of tears. Because everyone's so busy, so stressed, just too preoccupied to enter into someone else's grief. But if you've walked your own trail of tears, you are uniquely qualified to walk with someone else on theirs. And in so doing, you can find meaning in your pain.
In his recent book, Rob Moll says it well: "When suffering turns to compassion, the questions provoked by suffering can find resolution." A reviewer of that book commented, "Pain breaks us open, allowing us to become kinder and more generous toward others who suffer."
Or, as the Bible says in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, "God...the source of all comfort...comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others."
No one had more to do - no one had more important things to do - than Jesus did in His world-changing three-year ministry. But He stopped for the blind man by the side of the road. He stopped for the mother who had just lost her son, for the leper no one else would touch. And He's stopped for me. Again and again, He has "carried me." In the words of the Bible, "as a father carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31) when I couldn't walk another step. When all I could do was reach up and cry, "Daddy, carry me!"
So I am to be, as Oswald Chambers says, "not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others."
Showing up when they're falling down as Jesus has shown up for me. He didn't stay in the comfort of His heaven. He came to us as "a man of sorrows, acquainted with the deepest grief" (Isaiah 53:3) carrying my burden all the way to the cross.
Now I am called. I am privileged to be His face, His voice, His arms, and His hands so someone doesn't have to walk their trail of tears alone.
Family pain is often the deepest pain because it was inflicted so early, and because it involves people who should have been trustworthy. You were too young to process the mistreatment. You didn't know how to defend yourself. Besides the perpetrators of your pain were so large. Your dad, mom, uncle, big brother-they towered over you, usually in size, always in rank. When they judged you falsely, you believed them. All this time you've been operating on faulty data. "You're stupid. . .slow. . .dumb, like your daddy.
Decades later these voices of defeat still echo in your subconscious. But they don't have to! Romans 12:2 says, "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." And 1st Corinthians 13:11 adds, "Let Him replace childish thinking with mature truth!" You are not who they said you were. You are God's child!
From You'll Get Through This
John 5:1-24
Jesus Heals a Lame Man
Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda,[a] with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”
8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”
9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 10 so the Jewish leaders objected. They said to the man who was cured, “You can’t work on the Sabbath! The law doesn’t allow you to carry that sleeping mat!”
11 But he replied, “The man who healed me told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 “Who said such a thing as that?” they demanded.
13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.
Jesus Claims to Be the Son of God
16 So the Jewish leaders began harassing[c] Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. 17 But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” 18 So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.
19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. In fact, the Father will show him how to do even greater works than healing this man. Then you will truly be astonished. 21 For just as the Father gives life to those he raises from the dead, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants. 22 In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, 23 so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him.
24 “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.
Footnotes:
5:2 Other manuscripts read Beth-zatha; still others read Bethsaida.
5:3 Some manuscripts add an expanded conclusion to verse 3 and all of verse 4: waiting for a certain movement of the water, 4 for an angel of the Lord came from time to time and stirred up the water. And the first person to step in after the water was stirred was healed of whatever disease he had.
5:16 Or persecuting.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Read: James 3:2-10
Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.
3 We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. 4 And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. 5 In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.
But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. 6 And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.[a]
7 People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, 8 but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. 10 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!
Footnotes:
3:6 Or for it will burn in hell (Greek Gehenna).
INSIGHT:
The book of James is often referred to as “the Proverbs of the New Testament.” The emphasis on wisdom and behavior throughout its five brief chapters makes the comparison understandable. James’s well-known warning about the explosive threat hiding behind our lips is sandwiched between verses about the relationship between faith and deeds (2:14-26) and between wisdom and deeds (3:13-18). It seems that James is suggesting that faith and wisdom are both significantly demonstrated in our ability to control our tongue. In other words, our speech puts our faith and our wisdom on display for everyone to see.
Fiery Conversation
By Lawrence Darmani
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt. —Colossians 4:6
Where I come from in northern Ghana, bush fires are regular occurrences in the dry season between December and March. I’ve witnessed many acres of farmland set ablaze when the winds carried tiny embers from fireplaces or from cigarette butts carelessly thrown by the roadside. With the dry grassland vegetation, all that is needed to start a devastating fire is a little spark.
That is how James describes the tongue, calling it “a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6 niv). A false statement made here or backbiting there, a vicious remark somewhere else, and relationships are destroyed. “The words of the reckless pierce like swords,” says Proverbs 12:18, “but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (niv). Just as fire has both destructive and useful elements, so “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (18:21).
For conversation that reflects God’s presence in us and pleases Him, let it “always be with grace” (Col. 4:6). When expressing our opinions during disagreements, let’s ask God to help us choose wholesome language that brings honor to Him.
Guide my conversation today, Lord. May the words I choose bless and encourage others and build them up rather than tear them down. May You be pleased with what You hear.
Anger can make us speak our mind when we should be minding our speech.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 02, 2015
The Conditions of Discipleship
If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also….And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me….So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. —Luke 14:26-27, 33
If the closest relationships of a disciple’s life conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ, then our Lord requires instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person— our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a vast difference between devotion to a person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause— He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted bondservant motivated by love for the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not truly devoted to Jesus Christ. No one on earth has this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him. We may admire, respect, and revere Him, but we cannot love Him on our own. The only One who truly loves the Lord Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and it is He who has “poured out in our hearts” the very “love of God” (Romans 5:5). Whenever the Holy Spirit sees an opportunity to glorify Jesus through you, He will take your entire being and set you ablaze with glowing devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, July 02, 2015
How to be the Person They'll Never Forget - #7429
Missy lost her mother yesterday and Andy's wife filed for divorce today. A friend texted recently, heartbroken over his sister-in-law's cancer verdict. Some reservation friends of ours are grieving over one young suicide after another.
It just seems that we always know someone who's walking their own personal "trail of tears." Some weeks I think we could be sending a sympathy card like every day. And we've taken our turn. No family is immune. Bad news from the doctor. Burying someone we dearly love. A broken heart over a life that's broken. And you know what? We never forgot the person who was there when it was dark.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to be the Person They'll Never Forget."
My wife and I are honored to call many wonderful Cherokee friends our brothers and sisters. Some are really like family. And you can't be with Cherokees for very long without recollections of their people's darkest hour; one of the most infamous chapters in our nation's history. You've probably heard of it - The Trail of Tears.
The forced removal from their ancestral homelands. The brutal stockade imprisonments, and then the 800-mile Trail of Tears under military guard in a horrific six-month walk through one of the fiercest winters in American history. An estimated one-fourth of the Cherokee Nation died on or because of the Trail of Tears. I've stood with Cherokee friends at unmarked graves where some of those people are buried. I'll tell you what, I've wiped my eyes as they sang in Cherokee, the hymn that sustained their people amid all the dying - "Amazing Grace."
There were people on that trail who didn't have to be there; missionaries who loved the Cherokee people, who represented Jesus among the Cherokees. And now, who chose to be by their side, sharing their suffering.
There's a nearly 200-year old mission church on Cherokee land in Oklahoma today. But it wasn't built in Oklahoma. It was built in Georgia. And I'm told that the missionaries had so won the respect of the people that the chief actually ordered that the mission be dismantled and moved with the people. See, you never forget the person who walked with you on your trail of tears. Because everyone's so busy, so stressed, just too preoccupied to enter into someone else's grief. But if you've walked your own trail of tears, you are uniquely qualified to walk with someone else on theirs. And in so doing, you can find meaning in your pain.
In his recent book, Rob Moll says it well: "When suffering turns to compassion, the questions provoked by suffering can find resolution." A reviewer of that book commented, "Pain breaks us open, allowing us to become kinder and more generous toward others who suffer."
Or, as the Bible says in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, "God...the source of all comfort...comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others."
No one had more to do - no one had more important things to do - than Jesus did in His world-changing three-year ministry. But He stopped for the blind man by the side of the road. He stopped for the mother who had just lost her son, for the leper no one else would touch. And He's stopped for me. Again and again, He has "carried me." In the words of the Bible, "as a father carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31) when I couldn't walk another step. When all I could do was reach up and cry, "Daddy, carry me!"
So I am to be, as Oswald Chambers says, "not one who merely proclaims the gospel, but one who becomes broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for the sake of others."
Showing up when they're falling down as Jesus has shown up for me. He didn't stay in the comfort of His heaven. He came to us as "a man of sorrows, acquainted with the deepest grief" (Isaiah 53:3) carrying my burden all the way to the cross.
Now I am called. I am privileged to be His face, His voice, His arms, and His hands so someone doesn't have to walk their trail of tears alone.
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