Max Lucado Daily: THE INSPIRED WORD
Can we believe that all Scripture is inspired by God? Composed over sixteen centuries by forty authors! Begun by Moses in Arabia and finished by John on Patmos. Penned by kings in palaces, shepherds in tents, and prisoners in prisons. Would it be possible for forty writers writing in three different languages in several different countries, separated by as much as sixteen-hundred years, to produce a book of singular theme unless behind them there was one mind and one designer?
God’s Word endures. More than three-hundred fulfilled prophecies about the life of Christ were written at least four hundred years before he was born. Imagine if something similar occurred today. If we found a book written in 1900 that prophesied two world wars, a depression, an atomic bomb, and the assassinations of presidents—wouldn’t we trust it? Shouldn’t we trust the Bible?
From God is With You Every Day
Hosea 1
This is God’s Message to Hosea son of Beeri. It came to him during the royal reigns of Judah’s kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This was also the time that Jeroboam son of Joash was king over Israel.
This Whole Country Has Become a Whorehouse
2 The first time God spoke to Hosea he said:
“Find a whore and marry her.
Make this whore the mother of your children.
And here’s why: This whole country
has become a whorehouse, unfaithful to me, God.”
3 Hosea did it. He picked Gomer daughter of Diblaim. She got pregnant and gave him a son.
4-5 Then God told him:
“Name him Jezreel. It won’t be long now before
I’ll make the people of Israel pay for the massacre at Jezreel.
I’m calling it quits on the kingdom of Israel.
Payday is coming! I’m going to chop Israel’s bows and arrows
into kindling in the valley of Jezreel.”
6-7 Gomer got pregnant again. This time she had a daughter. God told Hosea:
“Name this one No-Mercy. I’m fed up with Israel.
I’ve run out of mercy. There’s no more forgiveness.
Judah’s another story. I’ll continue having mercy on them.
I’ll save them. It will be their God who saves them,
Not their armaments and armies,
not their horsepower and manpower.”
8-9 After Gomer had weaned No-Mercy, she got pregnant yet again and had a son. God said:
“Name him Nobody. You’ve become nobodies to me,
and I, God, am a nobody to you.
10-11 “But down the road the population of Israel is going to explode past counting, like sand on the ocean beaches. In the very place where they were once named Nobody, they will be named God’s Somebody. Everybody in Judah and everybody in Israel will be assembled as one people. They’ll choose a single leader. There’ll be no stopping them—a great day in Jezreel!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Read: Hebrews 11:8–16
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
11-12 By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
13-16 Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
INSIGHT:
Those listed in today’s text “were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.” We must repeatedly remind ourselves that “this world is not our home” but we are passing through. Ultimate satisfaction will never be realized in this life but must be anchored in God and the eternal home He has prepared us for.
Longing for Home
By James Banks
They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Hebrews 11:16
My wife walked into the room and found me poking my head inside the cabinet of our grandfather clock. “What are you doing?” she asked. “This clock smells just like my parents’ house,” I answered sheepishly, closing the door. “I guess you could say I was going home for a moment.”
The sense of smell can evoke powerful memories. We had moved the clock across the country from my parents’ house nearly twenty years ago, but the aroma of the wood inside it still takes me back to my childhood.
Philippians 3:20 reminds us that “our citizenship is in heaven.”
The writer of Hebrews tells of others who were longing for home in a different way. Instead of looking backward, they were looking ahead with faith to their home in heaven. Even though what they hoped for seemed a long way off, they trusted that God was faithful to keep His promise to bring them to a place where they would be with Him forever (Heb. 11:13–16).
Philippians 3:20 reminds us that “our citizenship is in heaven,” and we are to “eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Looking forward to seeing Jesus and receiving everything God has promised us through Him help us keep our focus. The past or the present can never compare with what’s ahead of us!
Jesus, thank You that You are faithful to keep Your promises. Please help me to always look forward to You.
The best home of all is our home in heaven.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.
To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher…” (Matthew 10:24).
We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.
Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable Being who says, “Oh well, sin doesn’t matter much”? Disciples Indeed, 389 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Flying Together or Flying Alone - #7792
If you're a photographer, you love seagulls. They soar so gracefully, almost like they're posing for the camera. They're beautiful – when they're alone. When they're together – not so beautiful. One gets on a perch, another comes and "boom!" knocks him off. One gets some food, others attack him for it. Actually, scientists put a red band on the leg of one seagull to find out what would happen. He was pecked to death by the other seagulls because he had something they didn't.
Contrast that with those Canada Geese some of us see migrating in the Spring and the Fall. They do everything together. Studies show that those geese almost always travel together, usually in those familiar V-formations. They rotate who's in front so one bird doesn't wear out. If one Canada goose is injured and can't go on, another goose will stay with him until he's ready to join another flock. They're like never left alone. The scientists even believe that the honking we hear is actually the geese cheerleading for each other, "Honk! You can make it! Mexico or bust! Honk!" I guess.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Flying Together or Flying Alone."
The bottom line on those geese from those who study them is this: they are able to fly up to 71% farther together than they could ever fly alone. So are we who belong to Jesus Christ. We're able to fly a whole lot farther together than we ever could by ourselves. It's just too bad that so many of us are more seagull than goose – we're up there soaring all by ourselves, doing our thing, but missing the power of flying together with our brothers and sisters.
That is so clearly demonstrated in Acts 2, beginning with verse 44, and that's our word for today from the Word of God. "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, enjoying the favor of all the people."
Part of the power of these original believers was that they were geese, not gulls. They looked out for one another, provided for each other, and they pursued the Lord together. And they were powerful. The next verse says, "The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." When's the last time you saw that happening? But then, when's the last time you saw believers together like that?
The "geese" principle actually applies to your family, your business, the ministry you're in, the relationships between believers in your church, and to the relationships between believers in your church with those in other churches. We can fly a lot farther together than we could ever fly alone!
But whether it's your church, your family, or another group, you have to fight to keep the flock together – because too many of us are solo-flying seagulls at heart aren't we? Here's Paul's blueprint for keeping the flock together. See how much this describes how you're acting. "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit..." (Ephesians 4:2-3). That's "effort" as in "keep working at everyone staying together".
Maybe you're in a situation where it's prone to be cliques, power blocs, little personal kingdoms, personal egos, personal agendas, and polarizing individualism. Don't get sucked into that. Do whatever you have to do to keep the flock together or pull the flock together; write a letter, bring people together, get people praying together, ask for forgiveness, or help folks keep their eye on a mission that unites them rather than issues that divide them. If you need to, tell them about the gulls and the geese.
It's time to bring the flock together and see how far we can fly when we're flying together.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
Isaiah 66 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: OPEN MANHOLES
It happens in an instant. One minute you’re walking and whistling, the next you’re wide-eyed and falling. Satan yanks back the manhole cover, and an innocent afternoon stroll becomes a horror story. Such is the pattern of sudden sin. This demon of hell can penetrate the deepest faith, and desecrate the purest home.
Want to sharpen your defenses a bit? Recognize Satan. Rip off his mask. Look him squarely in the eye and call his bluff. “Get behind me, Satan!” And…accept God’s forgiveness. Romans chapters 7-8 declare the Emancipation Proclamation for those of us who have a tendency to tumble. “Thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord!. . .therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 7:25-8:1 NIV).
Claim the promise. Praise the Lord. And…watch out for open manholes!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 66
Living Worship to God
God’s Message:
“Heaven’s my throne,
earth is my footstool.
What sort of house could you build for me?
What holiday spot reserve for me?
I made all this! I own all this!”
God’s Decree.
“But there is something I’m looking for:
a person simple and plain,
reverently responsive to what I say.
3-4 “Your acts of worship
are acts of sin:
Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox
is no different from murdering the neighbor;
Your offerings for worship,
no different from dumping pig’s blood on the altar;
Your presentation of memorial gifts,
no different from honoring a no-god idol.
You choose self-serving worship,
you delight in self-centered worship—disgusting!
Well, I choose to expose your nonsense
and let you realize your worst fears,
Because when I invited you, you ignored me;
when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil,
you chose what I hate.”
5 But listen to what God has to say
to you who reverently respond to his Word:
“Your own families hate you
and turn you out because of me.
They taunt you, ‘Let us see God’s glory!
If God’s so great, why aren’t you happy?’
But they’re the ones
who are going to end up shamed.”
6 Rumbles of thunder from the city!
A voice out of the Temple!
God’s voice,
handing out judgment to his enemies:
7-9 “Before she went into labor,
she had the baby.
Before the birth pangs hit,
she delivered a son.
Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?
Has anyone seen anything like this?
A country born in a day?
A nation born in a flash?
But Zion was barely in labor
when she had her babies!
Do I open the womb
and not deliver the baby?
Do I, the One who delivers babies,
shut the womb?
10-11 “Rejoice, Jerusalem,
and all who love her, celebrate!
And all you who have shed tears over her,
join in the happy singing.
You newborns can satisfy yourselves
at her nurturing breasts.
Yes, delight yourselves and drink your fill
at her ample bosom.”
12-13 God’s Message:
“I’ll pour robust well-being into her like a river,
the glory of nations like a river in flood.
You’ll nurse at her breasts,
nestle in her bosom,
and be bounced on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child,
so I’ll comfort you.
You will be comforted in Jerusalem.”
14-16 You’ll see all this and burst with joy
—you’ll feel ten feet tall—
As it becomes apparent that God is on your side
and against his enemies.
For God arrives like wildfire
and his chariots like a tornado,
A furious outburst of anger,
a rebuke fierce and fiery.
For it’s by fire that God brings judgment,
a death sentence on the human race.
Many, oh so many,
are under God’s sentence of death:
17 “All who enter the sacred groves for initiation in those unholy rituals that climaxed in that foul and obscene meal of pigs and mice will eat together and then die together.” God’s Decree.
18-21 “I know everything they’ve ever done or thought. I’m going to come and then gather everyone—all nations, all languages. They’ll come and see my glory. I’ll set up a station at the center. I’ll send the survivors of judgment all over the world: Spain and Africa, Turkey and Greece, and the far-off islands that have never heard of me, who know nothing of what I’ve done nor who I am. I’ll send them out as missionaries to preach my glory among the nations. They’ll return with all your long-lost brothers and sisters from all over the world. They’ll bring them back and offer them in living worship to God. They’ll bring them on horses and wagons and carts, on mules and camels, straight to my holy mountain Jerusalem,” says God. “They’ll present them just as Israelites present their offerings in a ceremonial vessel in the Temple of God. I’ll even take some of them and make them priests and Levites,” says God.
22-23 “For just as the new heavens and new earth
that I am making will stand firm before me”
—God’s Decree—
“So will your children
and your reputation stand firm.
Month after month and week by week,
everyone will come to worship me,” God says.
24 “And then they’ll go out and look at what happened
to those who rebelled against me. Corpses!
Maggots endlessly eating away on them,
an endless supply of fuel for fires.
Everyone who sees what’s happened
and smells the stench retches.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 21, 2016
Read: Ephesians 4:25–32
What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.
26-27 Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.
28 Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.
29 Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.
30 Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.
31-32 Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
INSIGHT:
At first glance, today’s Scripture can look like a list of rules. Stop telling lies, quit stealing, don’t use abusive language, stop being bitter or angry. But it’s important to remember that these instructions aren’t just about changing behavior. They are about a change in identity. This list flows out of Paul’s earlier exhortation for the Christians in Ephesus to live according to their new identity as children of light (4:17–21). They used to participate in all kinds of sinful behavior. But when the Spirit opened their minds and softened their hearts (v. 18) to the truth of Christ, they were no longer dead but became alive in Christ. The Spirit renews our thoughts and attitudes, making an inward change that has outward effects.
What About You?
By Anne Cetas
The tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21
Emily listened as a group of friends talked about their Thanksgiving traditions with family. “We go around the room and each one tells what he or she is thankful to God for,” Gary said.
Another friend mentioned his family's Thanksgiving meal and prayertime. He recalled time with his dad before he had died: “Even though Dad had dementia, his prayer of thanks to the Lord was clear.” Randy shared, “My family has a special time of singing together on the holiday. My grandma goes on and on and on!” Emily’s sadness and jealousy grew as she thought of her own family, and she complained: “Our traditions are to eat turkey, watch television, and never mention anything about God or giving thanks.”
The tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21
Right away Emily felt uneasy with her attitude. You are part of that family. What would you like to do differently to change the day? she asked herself. She decided she wanted to privately tell each person she was thankful to the Lord that they were her sister, niece, brother, or great-niece. When the day arrived, she expressed her thankfulness for them one by one, and they all felt loved. It wasn’t easy because it wasn’t normal conversation in her family, but she experienced joy as she shared her love for each of them.
“Let everything you say be good and helpful,” wrote the apostle Paul, “so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Eph. 4:29 nlt). Our words of thanks can remind others of their value to us and to God.
Dear Lord, show me how I can be an encouragement to others with my words.
The human spirit fills with hope at the sound of an encouraging word.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 21, 2016
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus…for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor…" (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 21, 2016
How to Survive When Everything's Coming Down - #7791
I was watching on TV an anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and my mind raced back to this unforgettable personal visit I had to the site of what was a very deadly tragedy. In a pre-September 11th America, that terrorist bombing of a Federal Office Building left most Americans in like stunned disbelief; at least it did me. My guide for my visit to the memorial made it really special and very moving, because he's a state trooper. He was one of the rescuers that day. His recollections of the joy of rescues and the heartbreak of lives lost I'm not going to ever forget.
Of course, all the traces of that bombed-out building are gone now. The site is now a beautiful lawn with a stone chair for each of the victims. What was the street that day is now a reflection pond. Nothing remains there from the day the world stopped at 9:02 A. M. – nothing, that is, except the tree. On an embankment across from what was the building site stands a big old tree, still partially blackened by the bomb blast. We stood there, my rescuer friend and I, and we prayed beneath those branches that somehow had endured the blast. They call it The Survivor Tree.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Survive When Everything's Coming Down."
One indestructible tree – that's all that survived the most powerful blast that city had ever known.
For 2000 years, men and women who are reeling from blasts that seem to have blown apart everything in their lives, have made it – because of one indestructible tree. The Survivor Tree; the one the Bible talks about when it says that Jesus Christ "bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). That tree is, of course, the cross where the greatest act of love in human history took place – the one and only Son of God dying in our place, paying for our sins so we would never have to. In that cross – in the unspeakable love that it makes available – so many have found the one life-anchor that nothing can take from them.
Every one of us has seasons in our life when a massive blast suddenly rips through everything around us. You could be in one of those seasons right now. Maybe you've been betrayed by a love you thought would always be there, your parent's marriage is coming apart, or you've lost someone who has been an anchor in your life. Sometimes we are victims of the destruction that comes from our own bad choices, which leaves you devastated by the shame of what you've done. Or it may not be what you've done. It may be the wrongs that have been done against you. The blast that changes everything can be a financial one or a medical one when a doctor's diagnosis hits like a bomb.
It is in those moments that we look for something to hold onto, something that can withstand what has rocked our life. And it is in moments like these that many of us have finally run to The Survivor Tree – the cross where Jesus died for us, where we can experience the "never leave you" love of Almighty God. That's the day you discover the miracle that's described in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 2:13-14, "You who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace."
That peace is within your reach this very day; maybe at a time when peace seems so impossible because of what you've lost. It may be that very loss will finally bring you to the one love you'll never lose. Jesus stands right now with arms wide open, waiting to forgive every sin of your life, to transform your dark side, and to heal what's broken inside you as only He can. He's waiting only for you to tell Him that you're turning from the sin that put Him on that cross and that you're putting all your trust in Him.
Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I would love to give you information that will help you secure your new beginning with Jesus Christ. And it's at our website ANewStory.com where your new story could begin today. Would you go there?
Take your stand by the tree – by the cross – that nothing has ever blown away. You are one heartfelt prayer away from having in your heart the indestructible love of Almighty God.
It happens in an instant. One minute you’re walking and whistling, the next you’re wide-eyed and falling. Satan yanks back the manhole cover, and an innocent afternoon stroll becomes a horror story. Such is the pattern of sudden sin. This demon of hell can penetrate the deepest faith, and desecrate the purest home.
Want to sharpen your defenses a bit? Recognize Satan. Rip off his mask. Look him squarely in the eye and call his bluff. “Get behind me, Satan!” And…accept God’s forgiveness. Romans chapters 7-8 declare the Emancipation Proclamation for those of us who have a tendency to tumble. “Thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord!. . .therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 7:25-8:1 NIV).
Claim the promise. Praise the Lord. And…watch out for open manholes!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 66
Living Worship to God
God’s Message:
“Heaven’s my throne,
earth is my footstool.
What sort of house could you build for me?
What holiday spot reserve for me?
I made all this! I own all this!”
God’s Decree.
“But there is something I’m looking for:
a person simple and plain,
reverently responsive to what I say.
3-4 “Your acts of worship
are acts of sin:
Your sacrificial slaughter of the ox
is no different from murdering the neighbor;
Your offerings for worship,
no different from dumping pig’s blood on the altar;
Your presentation of memorial gifts,
no different from honoring a no-god idol.
You choose self-serving worship,
you delight in self-centered worship—disgusting!
Well, I choose to expose your nonsense
and let you realize your worst fears,
Because when I invited you, you ignored me;
when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil,
you chose what I hate.”
5 But listen to what God has to say
to you who reverently respond to his Word:
“Your own families hate you
and turn you out because of me.
They taunt you, ‘Let us see God’s glory!
If God’s so great, why aren’t you happy?’
But they’re the ones
who are going to end up shamed.”
6 Rumbles of thunder from the city!
A voice out of the Temple!
God’s voice,
handing out judgment to his enemies:
7-9 “Before she went into labor,
she had the baby.
Before the birth pangs hit,
she delivered a son.
Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?
Has anyone seen anything like this?
A country born in a day?
A nation born in a flash?
But Zion was barely in labor
when she had her babies!
Do I open the womb
and not deliver the baby?
Do I, the One who delivers babies,
shut the womb?
10-11 “Rejoice, Jerusalem,
and all who love her, celebrate!
And all you who have shed tears over her,
join in the happy singing.
You newborns can satisfy yourselves
at her nurturing breasts.
Yes, delight yourselves and drink your fill
at her ample bosom.”
12-13 God’s Message:
“I’ll pour robust well-being into her like a river,
the glory of nations like a river in flood.
You’ll nurse at her breasts,
nestle in her bosom,
and be bounced on her knees.
As a mother comforts her child,
so I’ll comfort you.
You will be comforted in Jerusalem.”
14-16 You’ll see all this and burst with joy
—you’ll feel ten feet tall—
As it becomes apparent that God is on your side
and against his enemies.
For God arrives like wildfire
and his chariots like a tornado,
A furious outburst of anger,
a rebuke fierce and fiery.
For it’s by fire that God brings judgment,
a death sentence on the human race.
Many, oh so many,
are under God’s sentence of death:
17 “All who enter the sacred groves for initiation in those unholy rituals that climaxed in that foul and obscene meal of pigs and mice will eat together and then die together.” God’s Decree.
18-21 “I know everything they’ve ever done or thought. I’m going to come and then gather everyone—all nations, all languages. They’ll come and see my glory. I’ll set up a station at the center. I’ll send the survivors of judgment all over the world: Spain and Africa, Turkey and Greece, and the far-off islands that have never heard of me, who know nothing of what I’ve done nor who I am. I’ll send them out as missionaries to preach my glory among the nations. They’ll return with all your long-lost brothers and sisters from all over the world. They’ll bring them back and offer them in living worship to God. They’ll bring them on horses and wagons and carts, on mules and camels, straight to my holy mountain Jerusalem,” says God. “They’ll present them just as Israelites present their offerings in a ceremonial vessel in the Temple of God. I’ll even take some of them and make them priests and Levites,” says God.
22-23 “For just as the new heavens and new earth
that I am making will stand firm before me”
—God’s Decree—
“So will your children
and your reputation stand firm.
Month after month and week by week,
everyone will come to worship me,” God says.
24 “And then they’ll go out and look at what happened
to those who rebelled against me. Corpses!
Maggots endlessly eating away on them,
an endless supply of fuel for fires.
Everyone who sees what’s happened
and smells the stench retches.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 21, 2016
Read: Ephesians 4:25–32
What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.
26-27 Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.
28 Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.
29 Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.
30 Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.
31-32 Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
INSIGHT:
At first glance, today’s Scripture can look like a list of rules. Stop telling lies, quit stealing, don’t use abusive language, stop being bitter or angry. But it’s important to remember that these instructions aren’t just about changing behavior. They are about a change in identity. This list flows out of Paul’s earlier exhortation for the Christians in Ephesus to live according to their new identity as children of light (4:17–21). They used to participate in all kinds of sinful behavior. But when the Spirit opened their minds and softened their hearts (v. 18) to the truth of Christ, they were no longer dead but became alive in Christ. The Spirit renews our thoughts and attitudes, making an inward change that has outward effects.
What About You?
By Anne Cetas
The tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21
Emily listened as a group of friends talked about their Thanksgiving traditions with family. “We go around the room and each one tells what he or she is thankful to God for,” Gary said.
Another friend mentioned his family's Thanksgiving meal and prayertime. He recalled time with his dad before he had died: “Even though Dad had dementia, his prayer of thanks to the Lord was clear.” Randy shared, “My family has a special time of singing together on the holiday. My grandma goes on and on and on!” Emily’s sadness and jealousy grew as she thought of her own family, and she complained: “Our traditions are to eat turkey, watch television, and never mention anything about God or giving thanks.”
The tongue has the power of life and death. Proverbs 18:21
Right away Emily felt uneasy with her attitude. You are part of that family. What would you like to do differently to change the day? she asked herself. She decided she wanted to privately tell each person she was thankful to the Lord that they were her sister, niece, brother, or great-niece. When the day arrived, she expressed her thankfulness for them one by one, and they all felt loved. It wasn’t easy because it wasn’t normal conversation in her family, but she experienced joy as she shared her love for each of them.
“Let everything you say be good and helpful,” wrote the apostle Paul, “so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Eph. 4:29 nlt). Our words of thanks can remind others of their value to us and to God.
Dear Lord, show me how I can be an encouragement to others with my words.
The human spirit fills with hope at the sound of an encouraging word.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 21, 2016
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.
Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus…for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor…" (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.
Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 21, 2016
How to Survive When Everything's Coming Down - #7791
I was watching on TV an anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and my mind raced back to this unforgettable personal visit I had to the site of what was a very deadly tragedy. In a pre-September 11th America, that terrorist bombing of a Federal Office Building left most Americans in like stunned disbelief; at least it did me. My guide for my visit to the memorial made it really special and very moving, because he's a state trooper. He was one of the rescuers that day. His recollections of the joy of rescues and the heartbreak of lives lost I'm not going to ever forget.
Of course, all the traces of that bombed-out building are gone now. The site is now a beautiful lawn with a stone chair for each of the victims. What was the street that day is now a reflection pond. Nothing remains there from the day the world stopped at 9:02 A. M. – nothing, that is, except the tree. On an embankment across from what was the building site stands a big old tree, still partially blackened by the bomb blast. We stood there, my rescuer friend and I, and we prayed beneath those branches that somehow had endured the blast. They call it The Survivor Tree.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Survive When Everything's Coming Down."
One indestructible tree – that's all that survived the most powerful blast that city had ever known.
For 2000 years, men and women who are reeling from blasts that seem to have blown apart everything in their lives, have made it – because of one indestructible tree. The Survivor Tree; the one the Bible talks about when it says that Jesus Christ "bore our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). That tree is, of course, the cross where the greatest act of love in human history took place – the one and only Son of God dying in our place, paying for our sins so we would never have to. In that cross – in the unspeakable love that it makes available – so many have found the one life-anchor that nothing can take from them.
Every one of us has seasons in our life when a massive blast suddenly rips through everything around us. You could be in one of those seasons right now. Maybe you've been betrayed by a love you thought would always be there, your parent's marriage is coming apart, or you've lost someone who has been an anchor in your life. Sometimes we are victims of the destruction that comes from our own bad choices, which leaves you devastated by the shame of what you've done. Or it may not be what you've done. It may be the wrongs that have been done against you. The blast that changes everything can be a financial one or a medical one when a doctor's diagnosis hits like a bomb.
It is in those moments that we look for something to hold onto, something that can withstand what has rocked our life. And it is in moments like these that many of us have finally run to The Survivor Tree – the cross where Jesus died for us, where we can experience the "never leave you" love of Almighty God. That's the day you discover the miracle that's described in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 2:13-14, "You who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace."
That peace is within your reach this very day; maybe at a time when peace seems so impossible because of what you've lost. It may be that very loss will finally bring you to the one love you'll never lose. Jesus stands right now with arms wide open, waiting to forgive every sin of your life, to transform your dark side, and to heal what's broken inside you as only He can. He's waiting only for you to tell Him that you're turning from the sin that put Him on that cross and that you're putting all your trust in Him.
Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I would love to give you information that will help you secure your new beginning with Jesus Christ. And it's at our website ANewStory.com where your new story could begin today. Would you go there?
Take your stand by the tree – by the cross – that nothing has ever blown away. You are one heartfelt prayer away from having in your heart the indestructible love of Almighty God.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Isaiah 65 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: What He Says He Will Do
God will always be the same. No one else will. Companies follow pay raises with pink slips. Friends applaud you when you drive a classic and dismiss you when you drive a dud. Not God. God is always the same. James 4:1 says, with Him, “there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Catch God in a bad mood? Won’t happen. Fear exhausting His grace? A sardine will swallow the Atlantic first. Think He’s given up on you? Wrong. Did He not make a promise to you?
God is not a human being, and He will not lie. He is not a human, and He does not change His mind. What He says He will do. What He promises will come true. His strength, truth, ways, and love never change.
Hebrews 13:8 declares “He is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Trust him…what He says, He will do!
From The Lucado Inspirational Reader
Isaiah 65
The People Who Bothered to Reach Out to God
“I’ve made myself available
to those who haven’t bothered to ask.
I’m here, ready to be found
by those who haven’t bothered to look.
I kept saying ‘I’m here, I’m right here’
to a nation that ignored me.
I reached out day after day
to a people who turned their backs on me,
People who make wrong turns,
who insist on doing things their own way.
They get on my nerves,
are rude to my face day after day,
Make up their own kitchen religion,
a potluck religious stew.
They spend the night in tombs
to get messages from the dead,
Eat forbidden foods
and drink a witch’s brew of potions and charms.
They say, ‘Keep your distance.
Don’t touch me. I’m holier than thou.’
These people gag me.
I can’t stand their stench.
Look at this! Their sins are all written out—
I have the list before me.
I’m not putting up with this any longer.
I’ll pay them the wages
They have coming for their sins.
And for the sins of their parents lumped in,
a bonus.” God says so.
“Because they’ve practiced their blasphemous worship,
mocking me at their hillside shrines,
I’ll let loose the consequences
and pay them in full for their actions.”
8-10 God’s Message:
“But just as one bad apple doesn’t ruin the whole bushel,
there are still plenty of good apples left.
So I’ll preserve those in Israel who obey me.
I won’t destroy the whole nation.
I’ll bring out my true children from Jacob
and the heirs of my mountains from Judah.
My chosen will inherit the land,
my servants will move in.
The lush valley of Sharon in the west
will be a pasture for flocks,
And in the east, the valley of Achor,
a place for herds to graze.
These will be for the people
who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives,
who actually bothered to look for me.
11-12 “But you who abandon me, your God,
who forget the holy mountains,
Who hold dinners for Lady Luck
and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,
Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be:
your destiny, Death.
For when I invited you, you ignored me;
when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil;
you chose what I hate.”
13-16 Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, God:
“My servants will eat,
and you’ll go hungry;
My servants will drink,
and you’ll go thirsty;
My servants will rejoice,
and you’ll hang your heads.
My servants will laugh from full hearts,
and you’ll cry out heartbroken,
yes, wail from crushed spirits.
Your legacy to my chosen
will be your name reduced to a cussword.
I, God, will put you to death
and give a new name to my servants.
Then whoever prays a blessing in the land
will use my faithful name for the blessing,
And whoever takes an oath in the land
will use my faithful name for the oath,
Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten,
banished far from my sight.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Read: Acts 6:8–15; 7:59–60
Stephen, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.
11 So in secret they bribed men to lie: “We heard him cursing Moses and God.”
12-14 That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: “This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God’s Law. We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us.”
15 As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn’t take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!
INSIGHT:
The name Stephen comes from the Greek word stephanos, which refers to a victor’s crown awarded in the ancient games. Stephen’s final words show how victorious he was. Acts 7:60 reads, “Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” Even in the midst of a painful and unjust death, Stephen displayed a spirit of victory that reflected Jesus’s heart when dying on the cross (Luke 23:34). He also had a proven character. In Acts 6, when Stephen is selected to assist with the widows’ ministry, he is described as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). Stephen lived a life of faith under the control of the Spirit.
Sacrificial Faith
By Our Daily Bread
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10
It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m sitting in the garden of our home, which is near the church where my husband is the minister. I hear wafts of praise and worship music floating through the air in the Farsi language. Our church in London hosts a vibrant Iranian congregation, and we feel humbled by their passion for Christ as they share some of their stories of persecution and tell of those, such as the senior pastor’s brother, who have been martyred for their faith. These faithful believers are following in the footsteps of the first Christian martyr, Stephen.
Stephen, one of the first appointed leaders in the early church, garnered attention in Jerusalem when he performed “great wonders and signs” (Acts 6:8) and was brought before the Jewish authorities to defend his actions. He gave an impassioned defense of the faith before describing the hard-heartedness of his accusers. But instead of repenting, they were “furious and gnashed their teeth at him” (7:54). They dragged him from the city and stoned him to death—even as he prayed for their forgiveness.
May we find grace to be found faithful to the One who suffered so much more for us.
The stories of Stephen and modern martyrs remind us that the message of Christ can be met with brutality. If we have never faced persecution for our faith, let’s pray for the persecuted church around the world. And may we, if and when tested, find grace to be found faithful to the One who suffered so much more for us.
Lord God, we believe You weep at the pain and anguish some of Your children experience because they love You. We pray that You will strengthen them in the midst of their suffering and send them Your grace.
May we find grace to walk in the Master’s steps.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 20, 2016
The Forgiveness of God
In Him we have…the forgiveness of sins… —Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that he worships the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to him. The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L
God will always be the same. No one else will. Companies follow pay raises with pink slips. Friends applaud you when you drive a classic and dismiss you when you drive a dud. Not God. God is always the same. James 4:1 says, with Him, “there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Catch God in a bad mood? Won’t happen. Fear exhausting His grace? A sardine will swallow the Atlantic first. Think He’s given up on you? Wrong. Did He not make a promise to you?
God is not a human being, and He will not lie. He is not a human, and He does not change His mind. What He says He will do. What He promises will come true. His strength, truth, ways, and love never change.
Hebrews 13:8 declares “He is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
Trust him…what He says, He will do!
From The Lucado Inspirational Reader
Isaiah 65
The People Who Bothered to Reach Out to God
“I’ve made myself available
to those who haven’t bothered to ask.
I’m here, ready to be found
by those who haven’t bothered to look.
I kept saying ‘I’m here, I’m right here’
to a nation that ignored me.
I reached out day after day
to a people who turned their backs on me,
People who make wrong turns,
who insist on doing things their own way.
They get on my nerves,
are rude to my face day after day,
Make up their own kitchen religion,
a potluck religious stew.
They spend the night in tombs
to get messages from the dead,
Eat forbidden foods
and drink a witch’s brew of potions and charms.
They say, ‘Keep your distance.
Don’t touch me. I’m holier than thou.’
These people gag me.
I can’t stand their stench.
Look at this! Their sins are all written out—
I have the list before me.
I’m not putting up with this any longer.
I’ll pay them the wages
They have coming for their sins.
And for the sins of their parents lumped in,
a bonus.” God says so.
“Because they’ve practiced their blasphemous worship,
mocking me at their hillside shrines,
I’ll let loose the consequences
and pay them in full for their actions.”
8-10 God’s Message:
“But just as one bad apple doesn’t ruin the whole bushel,
there are still plenty of good apples left.
So I’ll preserve those in Israel who obey me.
I won’t destroy the whole nation.
I’ll bring out my true children from Jacob
and the heirs of my mountains from Judah.
My chosen will inherit the land,
my servants will move in.
The lush valley of Sharon in the west
will be a pasture for flocks,
And in the east, the valley of Achor,
a place for herds to graze.
These will be for the people
who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives,
who actually bothered to look for me.
11-12 “But you who abandon me, your God,
who forget the holy mountains,
Who hold dinners for Lady Luck
and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,
Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be:
your destiny, Death.
For when I invited you, you ignored me;
when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil;
you chose what I hate.”
13-16 Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, God:
“My servants will eat,
and you’ll go hungry;
My servants will drink,
and you’ll go thirsty;
My servants will rejoice,
and you’ll hang your heads.
My servants will laugh from full hearts,
and you’ll cry out heartbroken,
yes, wail from crushed spirits.
Your legacy to my chosen
will be your name reduced to a cussword.
I, God, will put you to death
and give a new name to my servants.
Then whoever prays a blessing in the land
will use my faithful name for the blessing,
And whoever takes an oath in the land
will use my faithful name for the oath,
Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten,
banished far from my sight.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Read: Acts 6:8–15; 7:59–60
Stephen, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.
11 So in secret they bribed men to lie: “We heard him cursing Moses and God.”
12-14 That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: “This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God’s Law. We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us.”
15 As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn’t take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!
INSIGHT:
The name Stephen comes from the Greek word stephanos, which refers to a victor’s crown awarded in the ancient games. Stephen’s final words show how victorious he was. Acts 7:60 reads, “Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” Even in the midst of a painful and unjust death, Stephen displayed a spirit of victory that reflected Jesus’s heart when dying on the cross (Luke 23:34). He also had a proven character. In Acts 6, when Stephen is selected to assist with the widows’ ministry, he is described as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5). Stephen lived a life of faith under the control of the Spirit.
Sacrificial Faith
By Our Daily Bread
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10
It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m sitting in the garden of our home, which is near the church where my husband is the minister. I hear wafts of praise and worship music floating through the air in the Farsi language. Our church in London hosts a vibrant Iranian congregation, and we feel humbled by their passion for Christ as they share some of their stories of persecution and tell of those, such as the senior pastor’s brother, who have been martyred for their faith. These faithful believers are following in the footsteps of the first Christian martyr, Stephen.
Stephen, one of the first appointed leaders in the early church, garnered attention in Jerusalem when he performed “great wonders and signs” (Acts 6:8) and was brought before the Jewish authorities to defend his actions. He gave an impassioned defense of the faith before describing the hard-heartedness of his accusers. But instead of repenting, they were “furious and gnashed their teeth at him” (7:54). They dragged him from the city and stoned him to death—even as he prayed for their forgiveness.
May we find grace to be found faithful to the One who suffered so much more for us.
The stories of Stephen and modern martyrs remind us that the message of Christ can be met with brutality. If we have never faced persecution for our faith, let’s pray for the persecuted church around the world. And may we, if and when tested, find grace to be found faithful to the One who suffered so much more for us.
Lord God, we believe You weep at the pain and anguish some of Your children experience because they love You. We pray that You will strengthen them in the midst of their suffering and send them Your grace.
May we find grace to walk in the Master’s steps.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 20, 2016
The Forgiveness of God
In Him we have…the forgiveness of sins… —Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that he worships the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to him. The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Romans 13 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God’s Definition of Promotion
For twenty years I was the senior minister of our church. Budgets, personnel, buildings, hiring and firing… was happy to fill the role. But I was happiest preaching and writing. My mind was always gravitating toward the next series. Even during committee meetings (well, especially during committee meetings) I was doodling on the next message. More staff and more people to manage meant spending more time doing what I didn’t feel called to do.
I was blessed to have options. And equally blessed to have a church that provided flexibility as I transitioned from senior minister to teaching minister. A few people were puzzled. “Don’t you miss being the senior minister?” Translation: Weren’t you demoted? Earlier in my life I would have thought so. But God’s definition of promotion isn’t a move up the ladder, it is a move toward your call. Don’t let someone “promote” you out of your call!
From Glory Days
Romans 13
To Be a Responsible Citizen
Be a good citizen. All governments are under God. Insofar as there is peace and order, it’s God’s order. So live responsibly as a citizen. If you’re irresponsible to the state, then you’re irresponsible with God, and God will hold you responsible. Duly constituted authorities are only a threat if you’re trying to get by with something. Decent citizens should have nothing to fear.
3-5 Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you’ll get on just fine, the government working to your advantage. But if you’re breaking the rules right and left, watch out. The police aren’t there just to be admired in their uniforms. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it. That’s why you must live responsibly—not just to avoid punishment but also because it’s the right way to live.
6-7 That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.
8-10 Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.
11-14 But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Read: Isaiah 40:21–31
Have you not been paying attention?
Have you not been listening?
Haven’t you heard these stories all your life?
Don’t you understand the foundation of all things?
God sits high above the round ball of earth.
The people look like mere ants.
He stretches out the skies like a canvas—
yes, like a tent canvas to live under.
He ignores what all the princes say and do.
The rulers of the earth count for nothing.
Princes and rulers don’t amount to much.
Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted,
They shrivel when God blows on them.
Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind.
25-26 “So—who is like me?
Who holds a candle to me?” says The Holy.
Look at the night skies:
Who do you think made all this?
Who marches this army of stars out each night,
counts them off, calls each by name
—so magnificent! so powerful!—
and never overlooks a single one?
27-31 Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind.
INSIGHT:
Isaiah’s reflections on the greatness of God are as powerful today as when penned centuries ago. Isaiah encourages the hearts of true believers to see the greatness of God in creation and how false, vain, and temporal substitute gods are. We are left with a wonderful awareness of our Creator’s nearness as well as His sustaining power to uphold us in trying circumstances.
Skywatcher
By Tim Gustafson
He . . . brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Isaiah 40:26
Unsettled by issues at work and at home, Matt decided to take a walk. The evening spring air beckoned. As the infinite sky deepened from blue to black, a thickening fog spilled slowly over the marsh. Stars began to glimmer, heralding the full moon rising in the east. The moment, for Matt, was deeply spiritual. He’s there, he thought. God is there, and He’s got this.
Some people look at the night sky and see nothing but nature. Others see a god as distant and cold as Jupiter. But the same God who “sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” also “brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name” (Isa. 40:22, 26). He knows His creation intimately.
We can find rest and certainty that God is always working toward His good purposes.
It is this personal God who asked His people, “Why do you say, Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’?” Aching for them, God reminded them of the wisdom in seeking Him. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? . . . He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (vv. 27–29).
We are easily tempted to forget God. Our problems won’t disappear with an evening stroll, but we can find rest and certainty that God is always working toward His good purposes. “I’m here,” He says. “I’ve got you.”
Thank You, Lord, for a night sky that helps us glimpse eternity. We can’t begin to understand it fully, but we know it is there, and we know You are there. Help us trust You for what we don’t know.
We should give God the same place in our hearts that He holds in the universe.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, November 19, 2016
“When He Has Come”
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin… —John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Approved Unto God, 11 L
For twenty years I was the senior minister of our church. Budgets, personnel, buildings, hiring and firing… was happy to fill the role. But I was happiest preaching and writing. My mind was always gravitating toward the next series. Even during committee meetings (well, especially during committee meetings) I was doodling on the next message. More staff and more people to manage meant spending more time doing what I didn’t feel called to do.
I was blessed to have options. And equally blessed to have a church that provided flexibility as I transitioned from senior minister to teaching minister. A few people were puzzled. “Don’t you miss being the senior minister?” Translation: Weren’t you demoted? Earlier in my life I would have thought so. But God’s definition of promotion isn’t a move up the ladder, it is a move toward your call. Don’t let someone “promote” you out of your call!
From Glory Days
Romans 13
To Be a Responsible Citizen
Be a good citizen. All governments are under God. Insofar as there is peace and order, it’s God’s order. So live responsibly as a citizen. If you’re irresponsible to the state, then you’re irresponsible with God, and God will hold you responsible. Duly constituted authorities are only a threat if you’re trying to get by with something. Decent citizens should have nothing to fear.
3-5 Do you want to be on good terms with the government? Be a responsible citizen and you’ll get on just fine, the government working to your advantage. But if you’re breaking the rules right and left, watch out. The police aren’t there just to be admired in their uniforms. God also has an interest in keeping order, and he uses them to do it. That’s why you must live responsibly—not just to avoid punishment but also because it’s the right way to live.
6-7 That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.
8-10 Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.
11-14 But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Read: Isaiah 40:21–31
Have you not been paying attention?
Have you not been listening?
Haven’t you heard these stories all your life?
Don’t you understand the foundation of all things?
God sits high above the round ball of earth.
The people look like mere ants.
He stretches out the skies like a canvas—
yes, like a tent canvas to live under.
He ignores what all the princes say and do.
The rulers of the earth count for nothing.
Princes and rulers don’t amount to much.
Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted,
They shrivel when God blows on them.
Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind.
25-26 “So—who is like me?
Who holds a candle to me?” says The Holy.
Look at the night skies:
Who do you think made all this?
Who marches this army of stars out each night,
counts them off, calls each by name
—so magnificent! so powerful!—
and never overlooks a single one?
27-31 Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind.
INSIGHT:
Isaiah’s reflections on the greatness of God are as powerful today as when penned centuries ago. Isaiah encourages the hearts of true believers to see the greatness of God in creation and how false, vain, and temporal substitute gods are. We are left with a wonderful awareness of our Creator’s nearness as well as His sustaining power to uphold us in trying circumstances.
Skywatcher
By Tim Gustafson
He . . . brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Isaiah 40:26
Unsettled by issues at work and at home, Matt decided to take a walk. The evening spring air beckoned. As the infinite sky deepened from blue to black, a thickening fog spilled slowly over the marsh. Stars began to glimmer, heralding the full moon rising in the east. The moment, for Matt, was deeply spiritual. He’s there, he thought. God is there, and He’s got this.
Some people look at the night sky and see nothing but nature. Others see a god as distant and cold as Jupiter. But the same God who “sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” also “brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name” (Isa. 40:22, 26). He knows His creation intimately.
We can find rest and certainty that God is always working toward His good purposes.
It is this personal God who asked His people, “Why do you say, Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’?” Aching for them, God reminded them of the wisdom in seeking Him. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? . . . He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (vv. 27–29).
We are easily tempted to forget God. Our problems won’t disappear with an evening stroll, but we can find rest and certainty that God is always working toward His good purposes. “I’m here,” He says. “I’ve got you.”
Thank You, Lord, for a night sky that helps us glimpse eternity. We can’t begin to understand it fully, but we know it is there, and we know You are there. Help us trust You for what we don’t know.
We should give God the same place in our hearts that He holds in the universe.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, November 19, 2016
“When He Has Come”
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin… —John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.
Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Approved Unto God, 11 L
Friday, November 18, 2016
Romans 12 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE PROMOTION
For 20 years I was the senior minister of our church. I was happy to fill the role. But I was happiest preaching and writing. As the church increased in number, so did the staff. That meant more people to manage. And that meant spending more time doing what I didn’t feel called to do. I transitioned from senior minister to teaching minister.
A few people were puzzled. “Don’t you miss being the senior minister?” Translation: Weren’t you demoted? Earlier in my life I might have thought so. But I’ve come to see that God’s definition of a promotion, is a move toward your call. Don’t let someone promote you out of your call. Not every tuba player has the skills to direct the orchestra. If you can, then do. If you can’t, blast away on your tuba with delight!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 12The Message (MSG)
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”
20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 18, 2016
Read: Luke 22:39–46
A Dark Night
39-40 Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”
41-44 He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.
45-46 He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.”
INSIGHT:
The Bible speaks of God’s love for us in terms of a generous sacrifice. The apostle John writes of a God who “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). To prove that God truly loves us, John directs us to Jesus’s sacrificial death: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Alluding to His own sacrificial love just hours before He went to the cross, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
Love Without Borders
By Randy Kilgore
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
During the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, missionaries trapped in a home in T’ai Yüan Fu decided their only hope for survival rested on running through the crowd that was calling for their deaths. Aided by weapons they held, they escaped the immediate threat. However, Edith Coombs, noticing that two of her injured Chinese students had not escaped, raced back into danger. She rescued one, but stumbled on her return trip for the second student and was killed.
Meanwhile, missionaries in Hsin Chou district had escaped and were hiding in the countryside, accompanied by their Chinese friend Ho Tsuen Kwei. But he was captured while scouting an escape route for his friends in hiding and was martyred for refusing to reveal their location.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
In the lives of Edith Coombs and Tsuen Kwei we see a love that rises above cultural or national character. Their sacrifice reminds us of the greater grace and love of our Savior.
As Jesus awaited His arrest and subsequent execution, He prayed earnestly, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” But He concluded that request with this resolute example of courage, love, and sacrifice: “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). His death and resurrection made our eternal lives possible.
Lord, may the world see our love for each other—and the deeds that come from it—as a great testimony to the bond of unity we have in You. May they want to know You too.
Only the light of Chr
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 18, 2016
Winning into Freedom
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. —John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin— we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments…and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
“If the Son makes you free….” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ….” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “…you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 18, 2016
Staying Afloat - #7790
One summer our staff had a picnic at the home of one of our volunteers. And this volunteer has a swimming pool. Actually a few people came prepared to go in the pool that day, but I knew one of them would be our son-in-law. He was there only minutes before he was in his swim trunks and diving in. What I didn't expect was who was in the pool with him – our one-year-old grandson. He looked so small in that big pool. But he was loving the water and floating along fearlessly. Not because he could swim, of course. Look, he was advanced – of course, our grandson, but not that advanced. No, his daddy had him sitting in his own personal inner tube, so he had no trouble staying afloat.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Staying Afloat."
Our grandson was able to stay afloat because he was riding something buoyant – something that couldn't sink. Of course, without that, the pool would have been a very fearful and very dangerous place.
The fact is, we all need something buoyant to hang onto don't we? Especially on those days when our load seems heavy enough to swamp us or even sink us. I know I have a lot of days when the load of responsibility seems so overwhelming. I'm like my little grandson. I need something buoyant to hold me up. And God has given it to us in a gift described in five words. They're in our word for today in Nehemiah 8:10. "Do not grieve", God says, "for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
Where do you find the strength to go on when your strength is gone? From the joy of the Lord. Now that joy is not rooted in your circumstances, how things are going, how people are treating you, how you're feeling, whether you're winning or losing, whether you're married or single, or whether you're surrounded by people or whether you're all by yourself. The roots of this joy are not in your situation. They're in your Savior. That's why the Apostle Paul can write a letter to the Philippians from a musty old prison cell and make joy his central theme. The Lord was in that prison cell with His joy as much as he was with Paul in his good times.
But for many of us, our load robs us of our joy. We become stressed, edgy, selfish, even mean-spirited when the pressure is on. There goes the joy! There goes the very strength we need to float through these waters. Now what is it about our Lord that can pump joy into our spirit, no matter what's happening? To experience that joy we need to focus on several important perspectives on our Lord.
First, the battle is the Lord's. That phrase, which is repeated several times in Scripture, allows us to relax in the confidence that the outcome, the victory is out of my hands and totally in God's hands. Man, does that lighten the load! He's the lord of the outcomes.
Secondly, God will come through this time as He always has before. On those overwhelming days, we really need to focus on praising God for the countless times He's come through in the past – and I need to affirm this time is not going to be any different. Great is His faithfulness! Lord, your mercies are new every morning.
Thirdly, everything I do is for my wonderful Lord. If you're doing it for anyone else, you will inevitably lose the joy because other people are going to let you down. One other joy-giving perspective – Jesus is the Lord of the undone. Boy, I'll tell you, so many days I've reached the end with a long list of things that didn't get done. You can sink if you think about them – or you can do what He taught me finally. You can release them to your Lord, knowing you've done your best and He'll do the rest. He is Lord of the undone.
When the load is heavy, you need strength more than ever – and "the joy of the Lord is your strength." You're buoyant because you're hanging onto something unsinkable. Which means you can carry a heavy load with a light heart!
For 20 years I was the senior minister of our church. I was happy to fill the role. But I was happiest preaching and writing. As the church increased in number, so did the staff. That meant more people to manage. And that meant spending more time doing what I didn’t feel called to do. I transitioned from senior minister to teaching minister.
A few people were puzzled. “Don’t you miss being the senior minister?” Translation: Weren’t you demoted? Earlier in my life I might have thought so. But I’ve come to see that God’s definition of a promotion, is a move toward your call. Don’t let someone promote you out of your call. Not every tuba player has the skills to direct the orchestra. If you can, then do. If you can’t, blast away on your tuba with delight!
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 12The Message (MSG)
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
9-10 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.
11-13 Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.
14-16 Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
17-19 Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”
20-21 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 18, 2016
Read: Luke 22:39–46
A Dark Night
39-40 Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”
41-44 He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.
45-46 He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.”
INSIGHT:
The Bible speaks of God’s love for us in terms of a generous sacrifice. The apostle John writes of a God who “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). To prove that God truly loves us, John directs us to Jesus’s sacrificial death: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Alluding to His own sacrificial love just hours before He went to the cross, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
Love Without Borders
By Randy Kilgore
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
During the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, missionaries trapped in a home in T’ai Yüan Fu decided their only hope for survival rested on running through the crowd that was calling for their deaths. Aided by weapons they held, they escaped the immediate threat. However, Edith Coombs, noticing that two of her injured Chinese students had not escaped, raced back into danger. She rescued one, but stumbled on her return trip for the second student and was killed.
Meanwhile, missionaries in Hsin Chou district had escaped and were hiding in the countryside, accompanied by their Chinese friend Ho Tsuen Kwei. But he was captured while scouting an escape route for his friends in hiding and was martyred for refusing to reveal their location.
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
In the lives of Edith Coombs and Tsuen Kwei we see a love that rises above cultural or national character. Their sacrifice reminds us of the greater grace and love of our Savior.
As Jesus awaited His arrest and subsequent execution, He prayed earnestly, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” But He concluded that request with this resolute example of courage, love, and sacrifice: “Yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). His death and resurrection made our eternal lives possible.
Lord, may the world see our love for each other—and the deeds that come from it—as a great testimony to the bond of unity we have in You. May they want to know You too.
Only the light of Chr
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 18, 2016
Winning into Freedom
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. —John 8:36
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin— we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments…and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
“If the Son makes you free….” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ….” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “…you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 18, 2016
Staying Afloat - #7790
One summer our staff had a picnic at the home of one of our volunteers. And this volunteer has a swimming pool. Actually a few people came prepared to go in the pool that day, but I knew one of them would be our son-in-law. He was there only minutes before he was in his swim trunks and diving in. What I didn't expect was who was in the pool with him – our one-year-old grandson. He looked so small in that big pool. But he was loving the water and floating along fearlessly. Not because he could swim, of course. Look, he was advanced – of course, our grandson, but not that advanced. No, his daddy had him sitting in his own personal inner tube, so he had no trouble staying afloat.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Staying Afloat."
Our grandson was able to stay afloat because he was riding something buoyant – something that couldn't sink. Of course, without that, the pool would have been a very fearful and very dangerous place.
The fact is, we all need something buoyant to hang onto don't we? Especially on those days when our load seems heavy enough to swamp us or even sink us. I know I have a lot of days when the load of responsibility seems so overwhelming. I'm like my little grandson. I need something buoyant to hold me up. And God has given it to us in a gift described in five words. They're in our word for today in Nehemiah 8:10. "Do not grieve", God says, "for the joy of the Lord is your strength."
Where do you find the strength to go on when your strength is gone? From the joy of the Lord. Now that joy is not rooted in your circumstances, how things are going, how people are treating you, how you're feeling, whether you're winning or losing, whether you're married or single, or whether you're surrounded by people or whether you're all by yourself. The roots of this joy are not in your situation. They're in your Savior. That's why the Apostle Paul can write a letter to the Philippians from a musty old prison cell and make joy his central theme. The Lord was in that prison cell with His joy as much as he was with Paul in his good times.
But for many of us, our load robs us of our joy. We become stressed, edgy, selfish, even mean-spirited when the pressure is on. There goes the joy! There goes the very strength we need to float through these waters. Now what is it about our Lord that can pump joy into our spirit, no matter what's happening? To experience that joy we need to focus on several important perspectives on our Lord.
First, the battle is the Lord's. That phrase, which is repeated several times in Scripture, allows us to relax in the confidence that the outcome, the victory is out of my hands and totally in God's hands. Man, does that lighten the load! He's the lord of the outcomes.
Secondly, God will come through this time as He always has before. On those overwhelming days, we really need to focus on praising God for the countless times He's come through in the past – and I need to affirm this time is not going to be any different. Great is His faithfulness! Lord, your mercies are new every morning.
Thirdly, everything I do is for my wonderful Lord. If you're doing it for anyone else, you will inevitably lose the joy because other people are going to let you down. One other joy-giving perspective – Jesus is the Lord of the undone. Boy, I'll tell you, so many days I've reached the end with a long list of things that didn't get done. You can sink if you think about them – or you can do what He taught me finally. You can release them to your Lord, knowing you've done your best and He'll do the rest. He is Lord of the undone.
When the load is heavy, you need strength more than ever – and "the joy of the Lord is your strength." You're buoyant because you're hanging onto something unsinkable. Which means you can carry a heavy load with a light heart!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Isaiah 64, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER
Speaking to the church, Jesus didn’t issue individual assignments. He said, “You—all of you, collectively—will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8 NIV). Jesus works in community. For that reason you find no personal pronouns in the earliest description of the church in Acts. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship; to the sharing of meals; and to prayer. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They worshiped together and shared their meals with great joy” (Acts 2:42-46 NLT).
The cameo contains only plural nouns and pronouns. No I or my or you. We are in this together. “He is the head of the body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:18 NCV). I am not the body, you are not the body. We—together—are his body!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 64
Can We Be Saved?
Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend,
make the mountains shudder at your presence—
As when a forest catches fire,
as when fire makes a pot to boil—
To shock your enemies into facing you,
make the nations shake in their boots!
You did terrible things we never expected,
descended and made the mountains shudder at your presence.
Since before time began
no one has ever imagined,
No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you
who works for those who wait for him.
You meet those who happily do what is right,
who keep a good memory of the way you work.
But how angry you’ve been with us!
We’ve sinned and kept at it so long!
Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?
We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves—
sin-dried, we’re blown off by the wind.
No one prays to you
or makes the effort to reach out to you
Because you’ve turned away from us,
left us to stew in our sins.
8-12 Still, God, you are our Father.
We’re the clay and you’re our potter:
All of us are what you made us.
Don’t be too angry with us, O God.
Don’t keep a permanent account of wrongdoing.
Keep in mind, please, we are your people—all of us.
Your holy cities are all ghost towns:
Zion’s a ghost town,
Jerusalem’s a field of weeds.
Our holy and beautiful Temple,
which our ancestors filled with your praises,
Was burned down by fire,
all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.
In the face of all this,
are you going to sit there unmoved, God?
Aren’t you going to say something?
Haven’t you made us miserable long enough?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Read: Matthew 6:1–6
The World Is Not a Stage
“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
2-4 “When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
Pray with Simplicity
5 “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
6 “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
INSIGHT:
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), Jesus issues a warning about hypocrisy (6:1–8). After His strong caution against it, He gives us the proper motivation. Our reason to share with open hands, to raise our hands in prayer, and to fold them before an empty plate is both stated and implied. When we do these things, we do them out of love for the Father, the source of all good, knowing He will bless our efforts. The implication is fairly clear. The approval of the Father is better than any praise we may receive from friends and neighbors. It is the reward from Him that we should truly and deeply want.
A Façade
By Anne Cetas
Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. Matthew 6:4 NLT
Kerri tries hard to get people to admire her. She acts happy most of the time so that others will notice and compliment her on her joyful attitude. Some affirm her because they see her helping people in the community. But in a transparent moment Kerri will admit, "I love the Lord, but in some ways I feel like my life is a façade." Her own sense of insecurity is behind much of her effort of trying to look good to others, and she says she’s running out of energy to keep it up.
We can probably all relate in some way because it’s not possible to have perfect motives. We love the Lord and others, but our motives for how we live the Christian life are sometimes mixed with our desire to be valued or praised.
He created us in His image and values us so much that He gave us His Son.
Jesus talked about those who give, pray, and fast in order to be seen (Matt. 6:1–18). He taught in the Sermon on the Mount to “give your gifts in private,” to “pray to your Father in private,” and “when you fast, don't make it obvious” (vv. 4, 6, 16 nlt).
Serving is most often done publicly, but maybe a little anonymous service could help us learn to rest in God’s opinion of us. He who created us in His image values us so much that He gave us His Son and shows us His love each day.
Dear Lord, please forgive me for desiring praise from others more than from You. Please help me as I struggle to keep my motives pure.
Our desire to please God should be our highest motive for obeying God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 17, 2016
The Eternal Goal
By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing…I will bless you… —Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself…
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
“At any cost…by any road” means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I simply come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when He says, “Trust God in this matter,” I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God’s revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God’s character.
’Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, “In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen…” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our “Yes” must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, “Amen,” or, “So be it.” That promise becomes ours.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 17, 2016
You Are Their Best Chance - #7789
Our son-in-law was visiting his grandfather in Florida, with a nice Florida view outside his bedroom window-grapefruit trees. It wasn't all a happy view though. Many of the grapefruit were actually rotting on the ground. His grandfather wasn't up to harvesting them anymore. So those grapefruit got all ready to be picked and no one came, and they dropped to the ground and died.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "You Are Their Best Chance."
That's what happens when there's no one there to harvest a crop when it's ready. It will die ready. Tragically, that same thing can happen to something much, much more valuable-a human soul. But it doesn't have to happen.
In Luke 10:2, our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." Okay, I grew up in an apartment in Chicago. I don't know a lot about harvesting. I mean, we just harvested cockroaches in our apartment. But I've asked a lot of farmers what's the first thing they think of when I say the word "harvest." Their answer is almost always the same, "ready."
So Jesus was saying, "The ready is plentiful." In other words, He's got a lot of lost people ready to hear about Him. They don't know that it's Jesus they're ready for, but they will when they hear about Him...if they hear about Him. Because Jesus' problem isn't with the people who don't know Him; it's with the people who do-His spiritual harvesters. He has so many of His people He's counting on to harvest the hearts that He's gotten ready for Him, but they're just sitting in the farmhouse with the rest of God's family. Meanwhile, the harvest of hearts is waiting in the field ready...until that person dies ready.
That's a heartbreaking spiritual tragedy-lives lost because the Christian they know isn't telling them about Jesus. Here's what He says to do about this deadly apathy. "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field." Those words "send out" sound so gentle in English. But the original Greek word is "ekballo" which means to "forcibly expel." It's used to throwing demons out of people, undesirables out of the temple. Many uses of the word include at least a hint of getting pretty aggressive, even violent. Jesus said His people need to be forcibly thrown out into the harvest of ready hearts. Maybe that's what He's trying to do with you.
That's why you're restless. That's why you're unfulfilled as a believer. He's rescued you to be using your everyday influence for something eternal-rescuing others from a Christless eternity. In Jesus, you've got so much that lost people around you are looking for. You've got peace in times of trouble, when Jesus is the only explanation for your peace. You've got a love you know you'll never lose. You've got the power to change the dark parts of you that you could have never changed yourself. You have a purpose to live for beyond just making it through the day and an eternity you are sure of. You have all of that because you have Jesus. They have none of that because they don't have Jesus.
The Savior who died for them has been working in their life to get them ready to hear about Him. And He's moving and shaking things in your life and in your soul to get you to tell about Him. He died for them, and they don't know it. And you are in possibly the best position of anyone to tell them. Before you talk to someone without Jesus, pray that 3-Open Prayer: "Lord, open a door to talk with them," "Lord, open their heart," and "Lord, open my mouth." Open a door, open their heart, and open my mouth.
You have no idea how important you are to the people you know. And they have no idea how important you are, but Jesus does. You are their best chance at Him; their best chance at heaven. It's harvest time, but it won't be for long. The ready time never is. Don't wait 'till their heart turns hard or until it beats for the very last time. Please don't let the people you know die ready.
Speaking to the church, Jesus didn’t issue individual assignments. He said, “You—all of you, collectively—will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8 NIV). Jesus works in community. For that reason you find no personal pronouns in the earliest description of the church in Acts. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship; to the sharing of meals; and to prayer. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They worshiped together and shared their meals with great joy” (Acts 2:42-46 NLT).
The cameo contains only plural nouns and pronouns. No I or my or you. We are in this together. “He is the head of the body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:18 NCV). I am not the body, you are not the body. We—together—are his body!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 64
Can We Be Saved?
Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend,
make the mountains shudder at your presence—
As when a forest catches fire,
as when fire makes a pot to boil—
To shock your enemies into facing you,
make the nations shake in their boots!
You did terrible things we never expected,
descended and made the mountains shudder at your presence.
Since before time began
no one has ever imagined,
No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you
who works for those who wait for him.
You meet those who happily do what is right,
who keep a good memory of the way you work.
But how angry you’ve been with us!
We’ve sinned and kept at it so long!
Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?
We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves—
sin-dried, we’re blown off by the wind.
No one prays to you
or makes the effort to reach out to you
Because you’ve turned away from us,
left us to stew in our sins.
8-12 Still, God, you are our Father.
We’re the clay and you’re our potter:
All of us are what you made us.
Don’t be too angry with us, O God.
Don’t keep a permanent account of wrongdoing.
Keep in mind, please, we are your people—all of us.
Your holy cities are all ghost towns:
Zion’s a ghost town,
Jerusalem’s a field of weeds.
Our holy and beautiful Temple,
which our ancestors filled with your praises,
Was burned down by fire,
all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.
In the face of all this,
are you going to sit there unmoved, God?
Aren’t you going to say something?
Haven’t you made us miserable long enough?
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Read: Matthew 6:1–6
The World Is Not a Stage
“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
2-4 “When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.
Pray with Simplicity
5 “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
6 “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
INSIGHT:
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), Jesus issues a warning about hypocrisy (6:1–8). After His strong caution against it, He gives us the proper motivation. Our reason to share with open hands, to raise our hands in prayer, and to fold them before an empty plate is both stated and implied. When we do these things, we do them out of love for the Father, the source of all good, knowing He will bless our efforts. The implication is fairly clear. The approval of the Father is better than any praise we may receive from friends and neighbors. It is the reward from Him that we should truly and deeply want.
A Façade
By Anne Cetas
Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. Matthew 6:4 NLT
Kerri tries hard to get people to admire her. She acts happy most of the time so that others will notice and compliment her on her joyful attitude. Some affirm her because they see her helping people in the community. But in a transparent moment Kerri will admit, "I love the Lord, but in some ways I feel like my life is a façade." Her own sense of insecurity is behind much of her effort of trying to look good to others, and she says she’s running out of energy to keep it up.
We can probably all relate in some way because it’s not possible to have perfect motives. We love the Lord and others, but our motives for how we live the Christian life are sometimes mixed with our desire to be valued or praised.
He created us in His image and values us so much that He gave us His Son.
Jesus talked about those who give, pray, and fast in order to be seen (Matt. 6:1–18). He taught in the Sermon on the Mount to “give your gifts in private,” to “pray to your Father in private,” and “when you fast, don't make it obvious” (vv. 4, 6, 16 nlt).
Serving is most often done publicly, but maybe a little anonymous service could help us learn to rest in God’s opinion of us. He who created us in His image values us so much that He gave us His Son and shows us His love each day.
Dear Lord, please forgive me for desiring praise from others more than from You. Please help me as I struggle to keep my motives pure.
Our desire to please God should be our highest motive for obeying God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 17, 2016
The Eternal Goal
By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing…I will bless you… —Genesis 22:16-17
Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.
My goal is God Himself…
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.
“At any cost…by any road” means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.
There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if He speaks to His own nature in me. Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I simply come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when He says, “Trust God in this matter,” I trust. This work of obedience is the evidence that the nature of God is in me.
God’s revelation of Himself to me is influenced by my character, not by God’s character.
’Tis because I am ordinary,
Thy ways so often look ordinary to me.
It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, “In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”
The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God. We may read some things in the Bible every day for a year and they may mean nothing to us. Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means and His nature is instantly opened up to us. “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen…” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Our “Yes” must be born of obedience; when by obedience we ratify a promise of God by saying, “Amen,” or, “So be it.” That promise becomes ours.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 17, 2016
You Are Their Best Chance - #7789
Our son-in-law was visiting his grandfather in Florida, with a nice Florida view outside his bedroom window-grapefruit trees. It wasn't all a happy view though. Many of the grapefruit were actually rotting on the ground. His grandfather wasn't up to harvesting them anymore. So those grapefruit got all ready to be picked and no one came, and they dropped to the ground and died.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "You Are Their Best Chance."
That's what happens when there's no one there to harvest a crop when it's ready. It will die ready. Tragically, that same thing can happen to something much, much more valuable-a human soul. But it doesn't have to happen.
In Luke 10:2, our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." Okay, I grew up in an apartment in Chicago. I don't know a lot about harvesting. I mean, we just harvested cockroaches in our apartment. But I've asked a lot of farmers what's the first thing they think of when I say the word "harvest." Their answer is almost always the same, "ready."
So Jesus was saying, "The ready is plentiful." In other words, He's got a lot of lost people ready to hear about Him. They don't know that it's Jesus they're ready for, but they will when they hear about Him...if they hear about Him. Because Jesus' problem isn't with the people who don't know Him; it's with the people who do-His spiritual harvesters. He has so many of His people He's counting on to harvest the hearts that He's gotten ready for Him, but they're just sitting in the farmhouse with the rest of God's family. Meanwhile, the harvest of hearts is waiting in the field ready...until that person dies ready.
That's a heartbreaking spiritual tragedy-lives lost because the Christian they know isn't telling them about Jesus. Here's what He says to do about this deadly apathy. "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest field." Those words "send out" sound so gentle in English. But the original Greek word is "ekballo" which means to "forcibly expel." It's used to throwing demons out of people, undesirables out of the temple. Many uses of the word include at least a hint of getting pretty aggressive, even violent. Jesus said His people need to be forcibly thrown out into the harvest of ready hearts. Maybe that's what He's trying to do with you.
That's why you're restless. That's why you're unfulfilled as a believer. He's rescued you to be using your everyday influence for something eternal-rescuing others from a Christless eternity. In Jesus, you've got so much that lost people around you are looking for. You've got peace in times of trouble, when Jesus is the only explanation for your peace. You've got a love you know you'll never lose. You've got the power to change the dark parts of you that you could have never changed yourself. You have a purpose to live for beyond just making it through the day and an eternity you are sure of. You have all of that because you have Jesus. They have none of that because they don't have Jesus.
The Savior who died for them has been working in their life to get them ready to hear about Him. And He's moving and shaking things in your life and in your soul to get you to tell about Him. He died for them, and they don't know it. And you are in possibly the best position of anyone to tell them. Before you talk to someone without Jesus, pray that 3-Open Prayer: "Lord, open a door to talk with them," "Lord, open their heart," and "Lord, open my mouth." Open a door, open their heart, and open my mouth.
You have no idea how important you are to the people you know. And they have no idea how important you are, but Jesus does. You are their best chance at Him; their best chance at heaven. It's harvest time, but it won't be for long. The ready time never is. Don't wait 'till their heart turns hard or until it beats for the very last time. Please don't let the people you know die ready.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Isaiah 63 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GRACE GIVES MORE
Grace goes beyond mercy. Mercy gave Ruth some food. Grace gave her a husband and a home. Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance, but grace threw him a party. Mercy prompted the Samaritan to bandage the wounds of a victim, but grace prompted him to leave his credit card as a payment for the victim’s care. Mercy forgave the thief on the cross but grace escorted him into paradise.
Let me spell it out. God has resolved to romance your heart. Through sunsets…through the kindness of a friend…through whispers of Scripture…perhaps even through a message from Max. Marginalized and discarded? Others may think so. You may think so. But God sees in you a masterpiece about to happen.
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 63
Who Goes There?
The watchmen call out,
“Who goes there, marching out of Edom,
out of Bozrah in clothes dyed red?
Name yourself, so splendidly dressed,
advancing, bristling with power!”
“It is I: I speak what is right,
I, mighty to save!”
2 “And why are your robes so red,
your clothes dyed red like those who tread grapes?”
3-6 “I’ve been treading the winepress alone.
No one was there to help me.
Angrily, I stomped the grapes;
raging, I trampled the people.
Their blood spurted all over me—
all my clothes were soaked with blood.
I was set on vengeance.
The time for redemption had arrived.
I looked around for someone to help
—no one.
I couldn’t believe it
—not one volunteer.
So I went ahead and did it myself,
fed and fueled by my rage.
I trampled the people in my anger,
crushed them under foot in my wrath,
soaked the earth with their lifeblood.”
All the Things God Has Done That Need Praising
7-9 I’ll make a list of God’s gracious dealings,
all the things God has done that need praising,
All the generous bounties of God,
his great goodness to the family of Israel—
Compassion lavished,
love extravagant.
He said, “Without question these are my people,
children who would never betray me.”
So he became their Savior.
In all their troubles,
he was troubled, too.
He didn’t send someone else to help them.
He did it himself, in person.
Out of his own love and pity
he redeemed them.
He rescued them and carried them along
for a long, long time.
10 But they turned on him;
they grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned on them,
became their enemy and fought them.
11-14 Then they remembered the old days,
the days of Moses, God’s servant:
“Where is he who brought the shepherds of his flock
up and out of the sea?
And what happened to the One who set
his Holy Spirit within them?
Who linked his arm with Moses’ right arm,
divided the waters before them,
Making him famous ever after,
and led them through the muddy abyss
as surefooted as horses on hard, level ground?
Like a herd of cattle led to pasture,
the Spirit of God gave them rest.”
14-19 That’s how you led your people!
That’s how you became so famous!
Look down from heaven, look at us!
Look out the window of your holy and magnificent house!
Whatever happened to your passion,
your famous mighty acts,
Your heartfelt pity, your compassion?
Why are you holding back?
You are our Father.
Abraham and Israel are long dead.
They wouldn’t know us from Adam.
But you’re our living Father,
our Redeemer, famous from eternity!
Why, God, did you make us wander from your ways?
Why did you make us cold and stubborn
so that we no longer worshiped you in awe?
Turn back for the sake of your servants.
You own us! We belong to you!
For a while your holy people had it good,
but now our enemies have wrecked your holy place.
For a long time now, you’ve paid no attention to us.
It’s like you never knew us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Read: Hebrews 11:32–12:3
I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
INSIGHT:
The target audience for the book of Hebrews is Jews who had trusted Jesus as their Messiah. But due to persecution, in some cases imprisonment, and through confiscation of personal property, they were tempted to forsake their faith in Jesus and return to Judaism.
The Twelfth Man
By David McCasland
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1
A large sign at the Texas A&M University football stadium says “HOME OF THE 12TH MAN.” While each team is allowed eleven players on the field, the 12th Man is the presence of thousands of A&M students who remain standing during the entire game to cheer their team on. The tradition traces its roots to 1922 when the coach called a student from the stands to suit up and be ready to replace an injured player. Although he never entered the game, his willing presence on the sideline greatly encouraged the team.
Hebrews 11 describes heroes of the faith who faced great trials and remained loyal to God. Chapter 12 begins, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (v. 1).
Lord, give us strength to run our race of faith today.
We are not alone on our journey of faith. The great saints and ordinary people who have been faithful to the Lord encourage us by their example and also by their presence in heaven. They are a spiritual 12th Man standing with us while we are still on the field.
As we fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (12:2), we are spurred on by all those who followed Him.
Lord, may we be aware of those in heaven who are cheering us on. Give us strength to run our race of faith today.
Faithful Christians from the past encourage us today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Still Human!
…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
When You're Tired of a Small, Small World - #7788
If you've been to Disneyland or Disney World with children, they made sure you got on this cute little ride called "Small World". It's this little boat that takes you on a trip down this winding little canal where these precious little dolls sing to you. They're dressed like children from all over the world, and they're singing this little song to you, which I will not sing. This is not a musical program. But you will remember maybe, it goes, "It's a small world after all." And it's cute – for a while. The problem is they keep singing it to you, around every bend, from every side. By the end of that ride, you are sick of a small, small world!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You're Tired of a Small, Small World."
There's a man in the Bible who was. And maybe you are. Oh, it isn't that your life isn't full. I mean, it's just not fulfilling. You're restless, feeling a little claustrophobia, and you know there must be more than this.
That's where this man in the Bible named Jabez was. If you've never heard of Jabez, that's OK, most people haven't. He's only mentioned once in the Bible and he's in the middle of nine chapters of genealogies. In this endless list of people who are only remembered because (the King James word) they "begat" someone, God suddenly stops the list to tell us about one man who stood out in this sea of mediocrity. And all we know about him is that he prayed. But in this simple prayer of Jabez – which obviously really impressed God – is a launching pad for the larger life you're restless for. Guess who made you restless. God did, because He's got more for you.
That prayer is found in our word for today from 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers...Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, 'Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm'..." And then this little footnote, "And God granted His request." Then it goes right back to the begatters. Obviously, God responds to a prayer like the prayer of Jabez.
Why? Well, first, because it's impassioned. It's not just a casual "Dear God" thing. "Jabez cried out" to God. See, God responds to desperate, heartfelt, "O Lord!" prayers. Secondly, life-enlarging prayer recognizes that everything depends on the blessing of God, "Oh, that You would bless me." There is nothing worth losing the blessing of God for; no sacrifice too great to have the blessing of God. One great Christian leader used to pray this way, "Lord, we ask not that You bless what we do, but that we do what You bless." That's great!
Thirdly, the prayer that blows the walls off your small, small world trusts God to enlarge the impact of your life. "Enlarge my territory." You dare to dream a big dream, planted by God in your heart. You reach out to Him and say, "Lord, I want to make a greater difference with the rest of my life than I've ever made before."
Finally, life-enlarging prayer dares to go where you've never gone because the hand of God is upon you. "Let Your hand be with me and keep me from harm." You dare to risk because you're trusting God to guide you with His hand where you're supposed to go and you know you'll be safe because He is protecting you and you're exactly where you were meant to be.
I'll bet there's a voice inside of you right now and he's whispering, "You're made for more. You're made for more." Go for that more you were made for.
God's been waiting for you to get tired of your small, small world – so tired that you would fall on your knees before Him and trust Him to make your life so much bigger; bigger than you ever thought it could be.
Grace goes beyond mercy. Mercy gave Ruth some food. Grace gave her a husband and a home. Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance, but grace threw him a party. Mercy prompted the Samaritan to bandage the wounds of a victim, but grace prompted him to leave his credit card as a payment for the victim’s care. Mercy forgave the thief on the cross but grace escorted him into paradise.
Let me spell it out. God has resolved to romance your heart. Through sunsets…through the kindness of a friend…through whispers of Scripture…perhaps even through a message from Max. Marginalized and discarded? Others may think so. You may think so. But God sees in you a masterpiece about to happen.
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 63
Who Goes There?
The watchmen call out,
“Who goes there, marching out of Edom,
out of Bozrah in clothes dyed red?
Name yourself, so splendidly dressed,
advancing, bristling with power!”
“It is I: I speak what is right,
I, mighty to save!”
2 “And why are your robes so red,
your clothes dyed red like those who tread grapes?”
3-6 “I’ve been treading the winepress alone.
No one was there to help me.
Angrily, I stomped the grapes;
raging, I trampled the people.
Their blood spurted all over me—
all my clothes were soaked with blood.
I was set on vengeance.
The time for redemption had arrived.
I looked around for someone to help
—no one.
I couldn’t believe it
—not one volunteer.
So I went ahead and did it myself,
fed and fueled by my rage.
I trampled the people in my anger,
crushed them under foot in my wrath,
soaked the earth with their lifeblood.”
All the Things God Has Done That Need Praising
7-9 I’ll make a list of God’s gracious dealings,
all the things God has done that need praising,
All the generous bounties of God,
his great goodness to the family of Israel—
Compassion lavished,
love extravagant.
He said, “Without question these are my people,
children who would never betray me.”
So he became their Savior.
In all their troubles,
he was troubled, too.
He didn’t send someone else to help them.
He did it himself, in person.
Out of his own love and pity
he redeemed them.
He rescued them and carried them along
for a long, long time.
10 But they turned on him;
they grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned on them,
became their enemy and fought them.
11-14 Then they remembered the old days,
the days of Moses, God’s servant:
“Where is he who brought the shepherds of his flock
up and out of the sea?
And what happened to the One who set
his Holy Spirit within them?
Who linked his arm with Moses’ right arm,
divided the waters before them,
Making him famous ever after,
and led them through the muddy abyss
as surefooted as horses on hard, level ground?
Like a herd of cattle led to pasture,
the Spirit of God gave them rest.”
14-19 That’s how you led your people!
That’s how you became so famous!
Look down from heaven, look at us!
Look out the window of your holy and magnificent house!
Whatever happened to your passion,
your famous mighty acts,
Your heartfelt pity, your compassion?
Why are you holding back?
You are our Father.
Abraham and Israel are long dead.
They wouldn’t know us from Adam.
But you’re our living Father,
our Redeemer, famous from eternity!
Why, God, did you make us wander from your ways?
Why did you make us cold and stubborn
so that we no longer worshiped you in awe?
Turn back for the sake of your servants.
You own us! We belong to you!
For a while your holy people had it good,
but now our enemies have wrecked your holy place.
For a long time now, you’ve paid no attention to us.
It’s like you never knew us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Read: Hebrews 11:32–12:3
I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
INSIGHT:
The target audience for the book of Hebrews is Jews who had trusted Jesus as their Messiah. But due to persecution, in some cases imprisonment, and through confiscation of personal property, they were tempted to forsake their faith in Jesus and return to Judaism.
The Twelfth Man
By David McCasland
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1
A large sign at the Texas A&M University football stadium says “HOME OF THE 12TH MAN.” While each team is allowed eleven players on the field, the 12th Man is the presence of thousands of A&M students who remain standing during the entire game to cheer their team on. The tradition traces its roots to 1922 when the coach called a student from the stands to suit up and be ready to replace an injured player. Although he never entered the game, his willing presence on the sideline greatly encouraged the team.
Hebrews 11 describes heroes of the faith who faced great trials and remained loyal to God. Chapter 12 begins, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (v. 1).
Lord, give us strength to run our race of faith today.
We are not alone on our journey of faith. The great saints and ordinary people who have been faithful to the Lord encourage us by their example and also by their presence in heaven. They are a spiritual 12th Man standing with us while we are still on the field.
As we fix our eyes on Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (12:2), we are spurred on by all those who followed Him.
Lord, may we be aware of those in heaven who are cheering us on. Give us strength to run our race of faith today.
Faithful Christians from the past encourage us today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Still Human!
…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31
In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.
We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
When You're Tired of a Small, Small World - #7788
If you've been to Disneyland or Disney World with children, they made sure you got on this cute little ride called "Small World". It's this little boat that takes you on a trip down this winding little canal where these precious little dolls sing to you. They're dressed like children from all over the world, and they're singing this little song to you, which I will not sing. This is not a musical program. But you will remember maybe, it goes, "It's a small world after all." And it's cute – for a while. The problem is they keep singing it to you, around every bend, from every side. By the end of that ride, you are sick of a small, small world!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You're Tired of a Small, Small World."
There's a man in the Bible who was. And maybe you are. Oh, it isn't that your life isn't full. I mean, it's just not fulfilling. You're restless, feeling a little claustrophobia, and you know there must be more than this.
That's where this man in the Bible named Jabez was. If you've never heard of Jabez, that's OK, most people haven't. He's only mentioned once in the Bible and he's in the middle of nine chapters of genealogies. In this endless list of people who are only remembered because (the King James word) they "begat" someone, God suddenly stops the list to tell us about one man who stood out in this sea of mediocrity. And all we know about him is that he prayed. But in this simple prayer of Jabez – which obviously really impressed God – is a launching pad for the larger life you're restless for. Guess who made you restless. God did, because He's got more for you.
That prayer is found in our word for today from 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. "Jabez was more honorable than his brothers...Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, 'Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm'..." And then this little footnote, "And God granted His request." Then it goes right back to the begatters. Obviously, God responds to a prayer like the prayer of Jabez.
Why? Well, first, because it's impassioned. It's not just a casual "Dear God" thing. "Jabez cried out" to God. See, God responds to desperate, heartfelt, "O Lord!" prayers. Secondly, life-enlarging prayer recognizes that everything depends on the blessing of God, "Oh, that You would bless me." There is nothing worth losing the blessing of God for; no sacrifice too great to have the blessing of God. One great Christian leader used to pray this way, "Lord, we ask not that You bless what we do, but that we do what You bless." That's great!
Thirdly, the prayer that blows the walls off your small, small world trusts God to enlarge the impact of your life. "Enlarge my territory." You dare to dream a big dream, planted by God in your heart. You reach out to Him and say, "Lord, I want to make a greater difference with the rest of my life than I've ever made before."
Finally, life-enlarging prayer dares to go where you've never gone because the hand of God is upon you. "Let Your hand be with me and keep me from harm." You dare to risk because you're trusting God to guide you with His hand where you're supposed to go and you know you'll be safe because He is protecting you and you're exactly where you were meant to be.
I'll bet there's a voice inside of you right now and he's whispering, "You're made for more. You're made for more." Go for that more you were made for.
God's been waiting for you to get tired of your small, small world – so tired that you would fall on your knees before Him and trust Him to make your life so much bigger; bigger than you ever thought it could be.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Isaiah 62 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: WELCOME GOD IN
When we invite God into our world, he walks in. He brings a host of gifts: joy, patience, resilience. Anxieties come, but they don’t stick. Fears surface and then depart. Regrets land on the windshield, but then comes the wiper of prayer.
The Devil still hands me stones of guilt, but I turn and give them to Christ. Struggles come, for sure. But so does God. Prayer is not a privilege for the pious, not the art of a chosen few. Prayer is simply a heartfelt conversation between God and his child.
My friend, he wants to talk with you. Even now, as you read these words, he taps at the door. Open it. Welcome him in and let the conversation begin!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 62
Look, Your Savior Comes!
Regarding Zion, I can’t keep my mouth shut,
regarding Jerusalem, I can’t hold my tongue,
Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun
and her salvation flames up like a torch.
Foreign countries will see your righteousness,
and world leaders your glory.
You’ll get a brand-new name
straight from the mouth of God.
You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand,
a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.
No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because God delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
For as a young man marries his virgin bride,
so your builder marries you,
And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride,
so your God is happy with you.
6-7 I’ve posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem.
Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out,
reminding God to remember.
They are to give him no peace until he does what he said,
until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise.
8-9 God has taken a solemn oath,
an oath he means to keep:
“Never again will I open your grain-filled barns
to your enemies to loot and eat.
Never again will foreigners drink the wine
that you worked so hard to produce.
No. The farmers who grow the food will eat the food
and praise God for it.
And those who make the wine will drink the wine
in my holy courtyards.”
10-12 Walk out of the gates. Get going!
Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
Clear the debris,
hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! God has broadcast to all the world:
“Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he’d do,
prepared to complete what he promised.’”
Zion will be called new names: Holy People, God-Redeemed,
Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Read: Ecclesiastes 1:1–11
The Quester
These are the words of the Quester, David’s son and king in Jerusalem
2-11 Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old
planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
Around and around and around it blows,
blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring—
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”?
Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
Don’t count on being remembered.
INSIGHT:
The author of Ecclesiastes seemed to go on a scavenger hunt for value through pleasure (2:1–3), projects (vv. 4–7), wealth (vv. 7–8), sex (v. 8), and fame (v. 9)—only to find it is meaningless. In some ways Ecclesiastes parallels Old Testament law. Even as the law shows us we can’t keep the law (and so we need a Savior in Jesus), Ecclesiastes shows us that apart from God’s vantage point, we will only end in frustration and futility (and so we need a satisfier in Jesus). If we restrict ourselves to seeking meaning as circumscribed by life “under the sun,” it would be like seeking a plank in the wide ocean. We are not restricted to happenstance “under the sun,” for God has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1:1–2). Jesus is God’s Son; therefore, listen to him” (Luke 9:35). People matter to God, for we are more than mere matter.
Do I Matter?
By Philip Yancey
[Christ Jesus] made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Philippians 2:7
I stand in the cashier line of the local supermarket and look around me. I see teenagers with shaved heads and nose rings looking through the snack foods; a young professional buying one steak, a few twigs of asparagus, and a sweet potato; an elderly woman pondering the peaches and strawberries. Does God know all these people by name? I ask myself. Do they really matter to Him?
The Maker of all things is the Maker of all human beings, and each of us is deemed worthy of His individual attention and love. God demonstrated that love in person on the gnarly hills of Israel and ultimately on the cross.
When we are overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness and pain, we can run only to You.
When Jesus visited earth in the form of a servant, He showed that the hand of God is not too big for the smallest person in the world. It is a hand engraved with our individual names and engraved also with wounds, the cost to God of loving us so much.
Now, when I find myself wallowing in self-pity, overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness that is articulated so well in books like Job and Ecclesiastes, I turn to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s stories and deeds. If I conclude that my existence “under the sun” (Eccl. 1:3) makes no difference to God, I contradict one of the main reasons God came to earth. To the question Do I matter? Jesus is indeed the answer.
Father, when we are overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness and pain, we can run only to You. Jesus showed us how much we matter to You, and we thank You!
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
“What Is That to You?”
Peter…said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "…what is that to you? You follow Me." —John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t.” You put your hand right in front of God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?” Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don’t allow it to continue, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another— proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness— consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we’re not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach— a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint— a saint is consciously dependent on God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. Facing Reality, 34 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Peace in the Midst of the Storm - #7787
Years ago a major art gallery sponsored a competition for painters. They were offering prizes for the best painting on the subject of "Peace". As the attenders browsed through the entries, most had decided that one certain painting was almost sure to win. It portrayed this lush green pasture under a vivid blue sky, with the cows grazing lazily and a little boy walking through the grass with his fishing pole over his shoulder. It really made you feel all peaceful. But it came in second. The painting that won was a big surprise. The scene was the ocean in a violent storm. The sky was ominous, the lightning was cutting across the sky, and the waves were crashing into the rock walls of the cliffs by the shore. No peace. But you had to look twice to understand what was going on. There, about halfway up the cliff was a birds' nest, tucked into a tiny hollow in the rock. A mother bird was sitting on that nest with her little babies, tucked underneath her, sleeping soundly. That was peace!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Peace in the Midst of the Storm."
Now, that was the title of the prize-winning painting – and rightly so, because peace is not just the absence of a storm. It's peace in the middle of the storm. The kind of peace many of us could use right now; the kind of peace maybe you could have right now if you're resting where you ought to be.
As our headlines have become more dominated with new dangers, as so many hearts have been struggling with new anxieties and new fears, I think we're ready for the incredible peace offered in Psalm 46. I call it "Good News for Troubled Times". It's our word for today from the Word of God. Maybe it should be our word for every day right now!
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." So, the more troubled things are, the more present God makes Himself. The psalmist then says, "Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." Everything's collapsing here – things that have always been there for us. But no fear. Why? "God is our refuge and strength."
This psalm continues: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where The Most High dwells." Where does God live today? Well, it's in those who belong to Him through faith in Jesus. So this is about you. "God is within her, and she will not fall...Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall...the Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." Then as everything seems to be melting down, God says, "Be still, and know that I am God."
OK, turn off the news, leave those other voices, and get where you can just be with God. And realize that as long as you're in His hands, there's no such thing as out of control. He is still God and you are still His!
And if you have never given yourself to Jesus, the Man who died for you to pay for your sin, I'd say there's never been a better time than this. With so much changing, with so much uncertainty, it's so great to know that you're safe forever in a relationship with Him.
I wonder if there's ever been a time when you began your personal relationship with Jesus. Not just have a religion about Jesus or agree with Jesus, but when you've pinned all your hopes on Him as the man who died for your sin and rose from the grave to give you eternal life. If you want that security, if you want that anchor; that rock to stand on, tell Him that today. Say, "Jesus, I want to belong to You. I don't just believe You, I want to belong to You and I'm giving myself to You because You gave yourself for me."
You know, I'd love to have you go to our website. I invite you to go there simply because the reason it's there is to help you be sure that you are anchored to Jesus Christ from this day on and forever. It's called ANewStory.com. I urge you to go there as soon as you can today.
When you are nesting in the care of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can rest through any storm, because you belong to the One who can give you peace in the middle of the storm.
When we invite God into our world, he walks in. He brings a host of gifts: joy, patience, resilience. Anxieties come, but they don’t stick. Fears surface and then depart. Regrets land on the windshield, but then comes the wiper of prayer.
The Devil still hands me stones of guilt, but I turn and give them to Christ. Struggles come, for sure. But so does God. Prayer is not a privilege for the pious, not the art of a chosen few. Prayer is simply a heartfelt conversation between God and his child.
My friend, he wants to talk with you. Even now, as you read these words, he taps at the door. Open it. Welcome him in and let the conversation begin!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 62
Look, Your Savior Comes!
Regarding Zion, I can’t keep my mouth shut,
regarding Jerusalem, I can’t hold my tongue,
Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun
and her salvation flames up like a torch.
Foreign countries will see your righteousness,
and world leaders your glory.
You’ll get a brand-new name
straight from the mouth of God.
You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of God’s hand,
a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God.
No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because God delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
For as a young man marries his virgin bride,
so your builder marries you,
And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride,
so your God is happy with you.
6-7 I’ve posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem.
Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out,
reminding God to remember.
They are to give him no peace until he does what he said,
until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise.
8-9 God has taken a solemn oath,
an oath he means to keep:
“Never again will I open your grain-filled barns
to your enemies to loot and eat.
Never again will foreigners drink the wine
that you worked so hard to produce.
No. The farmers who grow the food will eat the food
and praise God for it.
And those who make the wine will drink the wine
in my holy courtyards.”
10-12 Walk out of the gates. Get going!
Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
Clear the debris,
hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! God has broadcast to all the world:
“Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he’d do,
prepared to complete what he promised.’”
Zion will be called new names: Holy People, God-Redeemed,
Sought-Out, City-Not-Forsaken.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Read: Ecclesiastes 1:1–11
The Quester
These are the words of the Quester, David’s son and king in Jerusalem
2-11 Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That’s what the Quester says.]
There’s nothing to anything—it’s all smoke.
What’s there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
but nothing changes—it’s business as usual for old
planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
Around and around and around it blows,
blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
and then start all over and do it again.
Everything’s boring, utterly boring—
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There’s nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it’s the same old thing.
Does someone call out, “Hey, this is new”?
Don’t get excited—it’s the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody’ll remember them either.
Don’t count on being remembered.
INSIGHT:
The author of Ecclesiastes seemed to go on a scavenger hunt for value through pleasure (2:1–3), projects (vv. 4–7), wealth (vv. 7–8), sex (v. 8), and fame (v. 9)—only to find it is meaningless. In some ways Ecclesiastes parallels Old Testament law. Even as the law shows us we can’t keep the law (and so we need a Savior in Jesus), Ecclesiastes shows us that apart from God’s vantage point, we will only end in frustration and futility (and so we need a satisfier in Jesus). If we restrict ourselves to seeking meaning as circumscribed by life “under the sun,” it would be like seeking a plank in the wide ocean. We are not restricted to happenstance “under the sun,” for God has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1:1–2). Jesus is God’s Son; therefore, listen to him” (Luke 9:35). People matter to God, for we are more than mere matter.
Do I Matter?
By Philip Yancey
[Christ Jesus] made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Philippians 2:7
I stand in the cashier line of the local supermarket and look around me. I see teenagers with shaved heads and nose rings looking through the snack foods; a young professional buying one steak, a few twigs of asparagus, and a sweet potato; an elderly woman pondering the peaches and strawberries. Does God know all these people by name? I ask myself. Do they really matter to Him?
The Maker of all things is the Maker of all human beings, and each of us is deemed worthy of His individual attention and love. God demonstrated that love in person on the gnarly hills of Israel and ultimately on the cross.
When we are overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness and pain, we can run only to You.
When Jesus visited earth in the form of a servant, He showed that the hand of God is not too big for the smallest person in the world. It is a hand engraved with our individual names and engraved also with wounds, the cost to God of loving us so much.
Now, when I find myself wallowing in self-pity, overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness that is articulated so well in books like Job and Ecclesiastes, I turn to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s stories and deeds. If I conclude that my existence “under the sun” (Eccl. 1:3) makes no difference to God, I contradict one of the main reasons God came to earth. To the question Do I matter? Jesus is indeed the answer.
Father, when we are overwhelmed by the ache of loneliness and pain, we can run only to You. Jesus showed us how much we matter to You, and we thank You!
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
“What Is That to You?”
Peter…said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "…what is that to you? You follow Me." —John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t.” You put your hand right in front of God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?” Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don’t allow it to continue, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another— proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.
Most of us live only within the level of consciousness— consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we’re not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach— a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint— a saint is consciously dependent on God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. Facing Reality, 34 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Peace in the Midst of the Storm - #7787
Years ago a major art gallery sponsored a competition for painters. They were offering prizes for the best painting on the subject of "Peace". As the attenders browsed through the entries, most had decided that one certain painting was almost sure to win. It portrayed this lush green pasture under a vivid blue sky, with the cows grazing lazily and a little boy walking through the grass with his fishing pole over his shoulder. It really made you feel all peaceful. But it came in second. The painting that won was a big surprise. The scene was the ocean in a violent storm. The sky was ominous, the lightning was cutting across the sky, and the waves were crashing into the rock walls of the cliffs by the shore. No peace. But you had to look twice to understand what was going on. There, about halfway up the cliff was a birds' nest, tucked into a tiny hollow in the rock. A mother bird was sitting on that nest with her little babies, tucked underneath her, sleeping soundly. That was peace!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Peace in the Midst of the Storm."
Now, that was the title of the prize-winning painting – and rightly so, because peace is not just the absence of a storm. It's peace in the middle of the storm. The kind of peace many of us could use right now; the kind of peace maybe you could have right now if you're resting where you ought to be.
As our headlines have become more dominated with new dangers, as so many hearts have been struggling with new anxieties and new fears, I think we're ready for the incredible peace offered in Psalm 46. I call it "Good News for Troubled Times". It's our word for today from the Word of God. Maybe it should be our word for every day right now!
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." So, the more troubled things are, the more present God makes Himself. The psalmist then says, "Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging." Everything's collapsing here – things that have always been there for us. But no fear. Why? "God is our refuge and strength."
This psalm continues: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where The Most High dwells." Where does God live today? Well, it's in those who belong to Him through faith in Jesus. So this is about you. "God is within her, and she will not fall...Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall...the Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress." Then as everything seems to be melting down, God says, "Be still, and know that I am God."
OK, turn off the news, leave those other voices, and get where you can just be with God. And realize that as long as you're in His hands, there's no such thing as out of control. He is still God and you are still His!
And if you have never given yourself to Jesus, the Man who died for you to pay for your sin, I'd say there's never been a better time than this. With so much changing, with so much uncertainty, it's so great to know that you're safe forever in a relationship with Him.
I wonder if there's ever been a time when you began your personal relationship with Jesus. Not just have a religion about Jesus or agree with Jesus, but when you've pinned all your hopes on Him as the man who died for your sin and rose from the grave to give you eternal life. If you want that security, if you want that anchor; that rock to stand on, tell Him that today. Say, "Jesus, I want to belong to You. I don't just believe You, I want to belong to You and I'm giving myself to You because You gave yourself for me."
You know, I'd love to have you go to our website. I invite you to go there simply because the reason it's there is to help you be sure that you are anchored to Jesus Christ from this day on and forever. It's called ANewStory.com. I urge you to go there as soon as you can today.
When you are nesting in the care of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can rest through any storm, because you belong to the One who can give you peace in the middle of the storm.
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