Max Lucado Daily: A LESSON IN TRUST
In one of Henri Nouwen’s books, he tells about the lesson of trust he learned from a great trapeze artist. The acrobat said, “The flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. I have simply to reach out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron. The flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”
In the great trapeze act of salvation, God is the catcher, and we are the flyers. We trust. Period. We rely solely upon God’s ability to catch us. As we do trust Him, a wonderful thing happens– we fly! Your Father has never dropped anyone. He will not drop you. His grip is sturdy and his hands are open. Place yourself entirely in his care. As you do, you will find it is possible—yes, possible—to be anxious for nothing.
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 3
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
11 God said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”
12 The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”
God said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”
13 “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”
14-15 God told the serpent:
“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,
cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,
Cursed to slink on your belly
and eat dirt all your life.
I’m declaring war between you and the Woman,
between your offspring and hers.
He’ll wound your head,
you’ll wound his heel.”
16 He told the Woman:
“I’ll multiply your pains in childbirth;
you’ll give birth to your babies in pain.
You’ll want to please your husband,
but he’ll lord it over you.”
17-19 He told the Man:
“Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree
That I commanded you not to eat from,
‘Don’t eat from this tree,’
The very ground is cursed because of you;
getting food from the ground
Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;
you’ll be working in pain all your life long.
The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,
you’ll get your food the hard way,
Planting and tilling and harvesting,
sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”
20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.
21 God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.
22 God said, “The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!”
23-24 So God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they’d been made. He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Read: Ephesians 6:18–19
Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.
19-20 And don’t forget to pray for me. Pray that I’ll know what to say and have the courage to say it at the right time, telling the mystery to one and all, the Message that I, jailbird preacher that I am, am responsible for getting out.
INSIGHT
Ask God to help you model faith and prayer this week to the younger generation—children or grandchildren, youth in your church, or children in your neighborhood.
For more on prayer, visit ourdailybread.org/topics/prayer/.
The Daily Prayer
By Cindy Hess Kasper
Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Ephesians 6:18
Singer/songwriter Robert Hamlet wrote “Lady Who Prays for Me” as a tribute to his mother who made a point of praying for her boys each morning before they went to the bus stop. After a young mom heard Hamlet sing his song, she committed to praying with her own little boy. The result was heartwarming! Just before her son went out the door, his mother prayed for him. Five minutes later he returned—bringing kids from the bus stop with him! His mom was taken aback and asked what was going on. The boy responded, “Their moms didn’t pray with them.”
In the book of Ephesians, Paul urges us to pray “on all occasions with all kinds of prayers” (6:18). Demonstrating our daily dependence on God is essential in a family since many children first learn to trust God as they observe genuine faith in the people closest to them (2 Tim. 1:5). There is no better way to teach the utmost importance of prayer than by praying for and with our children. It is one of the ways they begin to sense a compelling need to reach out personally to God in faith.
Daily prayers lessen daily worries.
When we “start children off” by modeling a “sincere faith” in God (Prov. 22:6; 2 Tim. 1:5), we give them a special gift, an assurance that God is an ever-present part of our lives—continually loving, guiding, and protecting us.
Help me to depend more fully on You in every moment of the day and to rest in the assurance that You are always with me.
Daily prayers lessen daily worries.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 21, 2017
The Missionary’s Predestined Purpose
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant… —Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances— we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in John 3:16— “For God so loved the world….”
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Never Home Alone - #8009
I grew up as an only child. My parents took me to most of the places that they went, but I remember one time they left me home by myself. I was home alone. (You know, maybe somebody could make a movie about that someday.) Well, anyway, we lived in this third floor apartment on the south side of Chicago. It was getting very late. I was sitting near the back door waiting and they should have been home by now. I was worried. I remember hearing sirens and I thought, "Oh, no!" Okay, my imagination went crazy; it was taking me all over the place. I was thinking of all the bad things that might have happened to my parents. I was already there and then the sirens came. I was sure the sirens were for my mommy and my daddy, but they weren't. But the fear I had that night was so great, (How about this?) I still remember it don't I?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Never Home Alone."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 8, beginning with verse 37. You probably know this fear of abandonment that I had that night. That's not unique to me, or even to a child. I'm thinking of a friend of ours who struggled her whole life with it. She was left by her parents a lot because they were in mission work and there were a lot of "goodbyes" and she was always vulnerable to some bad choices because she was always afraid that she'd lose what she loved and what loved her.
All right, Romans 8:37, referring to the most disastrous things that could happen to you in your life, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced (Boy, here's the best news you might have ever heard.) that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, (Boy, this has got everything covered!) nor any powers, neither height nor depth (And that's like just in case I've forgotten anything.) neither anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."
This is where God promises one unloseable relationship. God created us to anchor ourselves to one relationship. The problem is that every other relationship on earth is losable. I think of the night when my wife was almost dying from hepatitis, and we weren't sure she'd make it and she was talking about the kinds of things people talk about when they think they may not make it. And I knelt by her bed and I said, "Dear God, please spare her." And I thank Him that He did spare her life. But that night I almost lost the one relationship I thought would never leave me. She said she would never choose to leave and I would never choose to leave her, but you know what? There come those times when the choice is out of our hands.
See, you need a relationship you can't lose, and you can't take Jesus away. He will not leave you-ever. He is the unloseable one. Any human love I receive, well, that's a welcome bonus, but my identity is supposed to be knowing Jesus. So, do you know Him? See, life is never secure until you belong to Christ. That begins the day you get your sin erased by putting your faith in what Jesus did when he died on the cross for that sin and then you're in His arms to stay.
Nothing in heaven, nothing on earth, nothing in hell can take you away from Him. Not because you're so good at hanging on, but because He's so good at hanging onto you. You've had your sins forgiven. The only thing that will keep you out of God's heaven is gone because you've put your trust in the One who died to remove them-Jesus, His One and only Son who's alive because He walked out of His grave. He can walk into your life today.
Earth folks will leave, but you can have a Savior who never, never will. He said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) And you decide whether that relationship ever begins, and you decide when it begins. Let it be today. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
Pay a visit to our website today and you'll find there everything you need to know from God's Word about making sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. Your new story could begin right there today.
The child in all of us hears the sirens. We imagine life without someone who loves us and we fear a future alone, and then Jesus steps in at your invitation and makes this awesome promise, "I am with you always." (Matthew 28:20)
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Genesis 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS GOOD
There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Your future matters more than your past!
God’s grace is greater than your sin. You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, or your job. In reality, it may be unresolved guilt. Don’t indulge it! Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. What you did was not good. But your God is good and He will forgive you. He is ready to write a new chapter in your life. Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).
Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross. Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 2
Heaven and Earth were finished,
down to the last detail.
2-4 By the seventh day
God had finished his work.
On the seventh day
he rested from all his work.
God blessed the seventh day.
He made it a Holy Day
Because on that day he rested from his work,
all the creating God had done.
This is the story of how it all started,
of Heaven and Earth when they were created.
Adam and Eve
5-7 At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn’t yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)—God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!
8-9 Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.
10-14 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there divides into four rivers. The first is named Pishon; it flows through Havilah where there is gold. The gold of this land is good. The land is also known for a sweet-scented resin and the onyx stone. The second river is named Gihon; it flows through the land of Cush. The third river is named Hiddekel and flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.
16-17 God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”
18-20 God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion.
21-22 God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.
23-25 The Man said,
“Finally! Bone of my bone,
flesh of my flesh!
Name her Woman
for she was made from Man.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.
The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Read: Ecclesiastes 4:9–12
It’s better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,
But if there’s no one to help, tough!
11 Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.
12 By yourself you’re unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.
INSIGHT
Ecclesiastes is a very unusual book. For much of this inspired text, life is examined without God in the picture (1:2). Although the book concludes with moral admonitions (see 12:1–8), the majority of the book has almost a secular feel to it. Yet because King Solomon the Wise is its author, remarkable principles of life surface. Today’s reading blesses the reader with insights on the benefits of meaningful relationships. The journey of life is not to be walked alone but benefits from mutual support of another.
Can you recall a time when God used someone to help you carry your load? -Dennis Fisher
Let’s Finish the Race
By Poh Fang Chia
Two are better than one . . . . If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
In the 2016 Rio Olympics, two athletes in the 5,000-meter race caught the world’s attention. About 3,200 meters into the race, New Zealander Nikki Hamblin and American Abbey D’Agostino collided and fell. Abbey was quickly up on her feet, but stopped to help Nikki. Moments after the two athletes had started running again, Abbey began faltering, her right leg injured as a result of the fall. It was now Nikki’s turn to stop and encourage her fellow athlete to finish the race. When Abbey eventually stumbled across the finish line, Nikki was waiting to embrace her. What a beautiful picture of mutual encouragement!
It reminds me of a passage in the Bible: “Two are better than one . . . . If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Eccl. 4:9–10). As runners in a spiritual race, we need one another—perhaps even more so, for we are not racing in competition with each other but as members of the same team. There’ll be moments where we falter and need someone to pick us up; at other times, someone may need our encouragement through our prayers or presence.
The spiritual race is not to be run alone.
The spiritual race is not to be run alone. Is God leading you to be a Nikki or Abbey in someone’s life? Respond to His prompting today, and let’s finish the race!
Dear Lord, thank You for the encouragement of fellow believers to help me on my journey. Help me to look for ways to encourage others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
The Divine Commandment of Life
By Oswald Chambers
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Removed And Replanted - #8008
Karen's Dad didn't want the holly bush by his carport anymore. But my wife wanted that holly bush. Yep! Dad said if we would dig it up, it was ours to transplant at the little Ozark farmstead that Karen inherited from her grandparents. Sounded simple. It wasn't. It took shovels, a chain, a pickup truck, and some major engineering to get that stubborn bush out of the ground and into the truck. Well, we quickly transported "Holly" to the farm, immediately dug a new home in the ground for her, and got her replanted. Then Karen poured on the water and the nutrients. See, just removing that bush from where it was turned out to be only half the battle. We had to get it replanted quickly in new soil-or it would never make it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Removed And Replanted."
If you belong to Jesus Christ, then He's done a lot to remove you from that old sinful soil your life was planted in. And just like our efforts to pull up that holly bush, it wasn't easy for Jesus to get you from your sin-hole to the Savior. You were deeply rooted there, you know? But Jesus gave His life on the cross to dig you out. Still, it could be that you're really struggling with the old you maybe. Could that be? Maybe you got removed but you never got firmly replanted.
Jesus told about a man who got cleaned up spiritually-and who ended up in terrible shape. Because getting rid of the old wasn't enough. Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 11:24 says, "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." Okay, the old junk got cleaned out, but you see, nothing got put in its place. And that left a dangerous vacuum. And the devil came rushing right into it.
Well, like our removing that old holly bush from the soil it had been planted in, your Savior has pulled you out of the pit of the old ways of living. But if you're struggling, if you're sinking, it might be because you haven't been replanted deeply in some new spiritual soil. You're out of the old soil, but you're not rooted in the new. And that puts you in a very vulnerable position.
When you come to Christ, you need to get immediately rooted in His Word, the Bible. Peter talks about getting removed from the old soil when he says, "Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind." Then he immediately talks about getting replanted in the new soil. "Like newborn babies," he says, "crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation (1 Peter 2:1-2).
You can't just survive on spiritual highs and Christian events-the soil is too shallow to dig your roots into. You're not going to have any spiritual stability and consistency until you anchor each new day with serious time in God's Word.
You've got to be an active part of His church, too. You've got to surround yourself with His teaching. If you don't, you're going to end up believing those old lies again. You need to surround yourself with His people. If you don't, you'll end up with the people who used to drag you down. You have to get busy in the activities of Jesus, or guess what. Yep, you'll drift into things that will pull you away from Him. If you don't get rooted in music that draws you closer to Jesus, you'll be into music that causes you to drift from Him. If you don't make an effort to learn God's promises, you're going to be an easy target for the devil's doubts and the devil's darts.
Yes, thanks to the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you, you've been removed from the deadly soil of sin. It took at lot-a lot-but Jesus did it all. Like a certain holly bush I know, experiencing the new life depends on you getting replanted right away in His new soil-where you can find all the nutrients you need to grow into all He rescued you to be.
There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Your future matters more than your past!
God’s grace is greater than your sin. You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, or your job. In reality, it may be unresolved guilt. Don’t indulge it! Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. What you did was not good. But your God is good and He will forgive you. He is ready to write a new chapter in your life. Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).
Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross. Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 2
Heaven and Earth were finished,
down to the last detail.
2-4 By the seventh day
God had finished his work.
On the seventh day
he rested from all his work.
God blessed the seventh day.
He made it a Holy Day
Because on that day he rested from his work,
all the creating God had done.
This is the story of how it all started,
of Heaven and Earth when they were created.
Adam and Eve
5-7 At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn’t yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)—God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!
8-9 Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.
10-14 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden and from there divides into four rivers. The first is named Pishon; it flows through Havilah where there is gold. The gold of this land is good. The land is also known for a sweet-scented resin and the onyx stone. The second river is named Gihon; it flows through the land of Cush. The third river is named Hiddekel and flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order.
16-17 God commanded the Man, “You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don’t eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you’re dead.”
18-20 God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” So God formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn’t find a suitable companion.
21-22 God put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.
23-25 The Man said,
“Finally! Bone of my bone,
flesh of my flesh!
Name her Woman
for she was made from Man.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh.
The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Read: Ecclesiastes 4:9–12
It’s better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,
But if there’s no one to help, tough!
11 Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.
12 By yourself you’re unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.
INSIGHT
Ecclesiastes is a very unusual book. For much of this inspired text, life is examined without God in the picture (1:2). Although the book concludes with moral admonitions (see 12:1–8), the majority of the book has almost a secular feel to it. Yet because King Solomon the Wise is its author, remarkable principles of life surface. Today’s reading blesses the reader with insights on the benefits of meaningful relationships. The journey of life is not to be walked alone but benefits from mutual support of another.
Can you recall a time when God used someone to help you carry your load? -Dennis Fisher
Let’s Finish the Race
By Poh Fang Chia
Two are better than one . . . . If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
In the 2016 Rio Olympics, two athletes in the 5,000-meter race caught the world’s attention. About 3,200 meters into the race, New Zealander Nikki Hamblin and American Abbey D’Agostino collided and fell. Abbey was quickly up on her feet, but stopped to help Nikki. Moments after the two athletes had started running again, Abbey began faltering, her right leg injured as a result of the fall. It was now Nikki’s turn to stop and encourage her fellow athlete to finish the race. When Abbey eventually stumbled across the finish line, Nikki was waiting to embrace her. What a beautiful picture of mutual encouragement!
It reminds me of a passage in the Bible: “Two are better than one . . . . If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Eccl. 4:9–10). As runners in a spiritual race, we need one another—perhaps even more so, for we are not racing in competition with each other but as members of the same team. There’ll be moments where we falter and need someone to pick us up; at other times, someone may need our encouragement through our prayers or presence.
The spiritual race is not to be run alone.
The spiritual race is not to be run alone. Is God leading you to be a Nikki or Abbey in someone’s life? Respond to His prompting today, and let’s finish the race!
Dear Lord, thank You for the encouragement of fellow believers to help me on my journey. Help me to look for ways to encourage others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
The Divine Commandment of Life
By Oswald Chambers
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Removed And Replanted - #8008
Karen's Dad didn't want the holly bush by his carport anymore. But my wife wanted that holly bush. Yep! Dad said if we would dig it up, it was ours to transplant at the little Ozark farmstead that Karen inherited from her grandparents. Sounded simple. It wasn't. It took shovels, a chain, a pickup truck, and some major engineering to get that stubborn bush out of the ground and into the truck. Well, we quickly transported "Holly" to the farm, immediately dug a new home in the ground for her, and got her replanted. Then Karen poured on the water and the nutrients. See, just removing that bush from where it was turned out to be only half the battle. We had to get it replanted quickly in new soil-or it would never make it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Removed And Replanted."
If you belong to Jesus Christ, then He's done a lot to remove you from that old sinful soil your life was planted in. And just like our efforts to pull up that holly bush, it wasn't easy for Jesus to get you from your sin-hole to the Savior. You were deeply rooted there, you know? But Jesus gave His life on the cross to dig you out. Still, it could be that you're really struggling with the old you maybe. Could that be? Maybe you got removed but you never got firmly replanted.
Jesus told about a man who got cleaned up spiritually-and who ended up in terrible shape. Because getting rid of the old wasn't enough. Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 11:24 says, "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." Okay, the old junk got cleaned out, but you see, nothing got put in its place. And that left a dangerous vacuum. And the devil came rushing right into it.
Well, like our removing that old holly bush from the soil it had been planted in, your Savior has pulled you out of the pit of the old ways of living. But if you're struggling, if you're sinking, it might be because you haven't been replanted deeply in some new spiritual soil. You're out of the old soil, but you're not rooted in the new. And that puts you in a very vulnerable position.
When you come to Christ, you need to get immediately rooted in His Word, the Bible. Peter talks about getting removed from the old soil when he says, "Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind." Then he immediately talks about getting replanted in the new soil. "Like newborn babies," he says, "crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation (1 Peter 2:1-2).
You can't just survive on spiritual highs and Christian events-the soil is too shallow to dig your roots into. You're not going to have any spiritual stability and consistency until you anchor each new day with serious time in God's Word.
You've got to be an active part of His church, too. You've got to surround yourself with His teaching. If you don't, you're going to end up believing those old lies again. You need to surround yourself with His people. If you don't, you'll end up with the people who used to drag you down. You have to get busy in the activities of Jesus, or guess what. Yep, you'll drift into things that will pull you away from Him. If you don't get rooted in music that draws you closer to Jesus, you'll be into music that causes you to drift from Him. If you don't make an effort to learn God's promises, you're going to be an easy target for the devil's doubts and the devil's darts.
Yes, thanks to the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you, you've been removed from the deadly soil of sin. It took at lot-a lot-but Jesus did it all. Like a certain holly bush I know, experiencing the new life depends on you getting replanted right away in His new soil-where you can find all the nutrients you need to grow into all He rescued you to be.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Genesis 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HE TOOK IT
Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over. After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill. “I’ll take this,” he said. Guess what? I let him do what he wanted to do. I let him take it away.
Someday we will stand before God. All of us will be present. All of us will have to give an account for our lives…every thought, every deed, every action. Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought. Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29 Phillips).
On that day, I will point to Christ. When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.” Let him take yours.
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 1
Heaven and Earth
1-2 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
3-5 God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
6-8 God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters;
separate water from water!”
God made sky.
He separated the water under sky
from the water above sky.
And there it was:
he named sky the Heavens;
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Two.
9-10 God spoke: “Separate!
Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;
Land, appear!”
And there it was.
God named the land Earth.
He named the pooled water Ocean.
God saw that it was good.
11-13 God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
of seed-bearing plants,
Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
And there it was.
Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
all varieties,
And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Three.
14-15 God spoke: “Lights! Come out!
Shine in Heaven’s sky!
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons and days and years,
Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”
And there it was.
16-19 God made two big lights, the larger
to take charge of Day,
The smaller to be in charge of Night;
and he made the stars.
God placed them in the heavenly sky
to light up Earth
And oversee Day and Night,
to separate light and dark.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Four.
20-23 God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
24-25 God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
29-30 Then God said, “I’ve given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning— Day Six.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Read: Psalm 73:21–28 |
When I was beleaguered and bitter,
totally consumed by envy,
I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox
in your very presence.
I’m still in your presence,
but you’ve taken my hand.
You wisely and tenderly lead me,
and then you bless me.
25-28 You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—
oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God, I’m telling the world what you do!
INSIGHT
In Philippians 4:12, the key verse for today, the apostle Paul says he’s learned the secret of being content. Yet for Paul, life wasn’t easy—especially life as an evangelist. In another letter written by him, Paul lists the many trials he faced: five times he was brutally whipped, three times beaten with rods, and once pelted with stones. He was in danger at sea and on land, was imprisoned several times, and often went without sleep or food (see 2 Cor. 11:23–27). How could Paul be content in such difficult circumstances? What was his “secret”? He wrote, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). Because of the strength God gave him, Paul could be content “whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (v. 12).
Do you struggle with contentment? Ask God to give you the strength to be content in your situation.-Alyson Kieda
The Best Portion of All
By James Banks
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Philippians 4:12
“His piece is bigger than mine!”
When I was a boy my brothers and I would sometimes bicker about the size of the piece of homemade pie mom served us. One day Dad observed our antics with a lifted eyebrow, and smiled at Mom as he lifted his plate: “Please just give me a piece as big as your heart.” My brothers and I watched in stunned silence as Mom laughed and offered him the largest portion of all.
When we are His, He is ours, forever.
If we focus on others’ possessions, jealousy too often results. Yet God’s Word lifts our eyes to something of far greater worth than earthly possessions. The psalmist writes, “You are my portion, Lord; I have promised to obey your words. I have sought your face with all my heart” (Ps. 119:57–58). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the writer conveyed the truth that nothing matters more than closeness to God.
What better portion could we have than our loving and limitless Creator? Nothing on earth can compare with Him, and nothing can take Him away from us. Human longing is an expansive void; one may have “everything” in the world and still be miserable. But when God is our source of happiness, we are truly content. There’s a space within us only God can fill. He alone can give us the peace that matches our hearts.
Loving Lord, thank You that nothing and no one can meet my every need like You can.
When we are His, He is ours, forever.
You have made us for yourself, Lord. Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in You. Augustine of Hippo
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible is the only Book that gives us any indication of the true nature of sin, and where it came from. The Philosophy of Sin, 1107 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Binoculars for God - #8007
Usually a total eclipse of the moon seems to happen when I'm counting sheep in the middle of the night. But this one started about 9:00 at night, and this one I got a chance to see. It's a pretty amazing sight to watch that shadow slowly move across the moon until it eventually covers it completely. I said to the friend who was assisting us with ministry that weekend, "I just wish we had binoculars." "Me, too," he said. Then it dawned on him, he said, "Hey, I do have binoculars in my truck!" All of a sudden we moved from seats near the back to something like front row seats on this eclipse. Those binoculars revealed the craters and all the fascinating details of that disappearing moon. What a difference it made to see it up close!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Binoculars for God."
Whether it's watching the heavens or watching some faraway wildlife right here on earth, binoculars really do make a difference. They make it big by bringing it close, which is exactly what you're supposed to be doing with the God you belong to-making Him big to the people around you by bringing Him close. I guess that would make you binoculars for God.
The famed Westminster Catechism of the Christian faith opens with this powerful summary of why we're all here: "The chief end of man is to glorify God." That's really clear in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 1, beginning with verses 5 and 6. Like the Hubble Telescope, this passage shows us things about our spiritual universe that we could never see without it. Like the purpose for our lives, for example.
The Bible says: "He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." Before there was a world, before there was a you, God had a plan for you to rescue you through His Son, so you could live as it says, for "the praise of His glorious grace."
Verses 11 and 12 talk about His plan, "the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will..." And what is His purpose that guides His plan? "...that we might be for the praise of His glory." Later, it says He bought us with blood to be for this ultimate outcome: "To the praise of His glory."
Okay, God believes in what management consultants call MBO-Management By Objective. Since before there was a world, right up to you and me this day and right on through to eternity, God's running His plan by one objective, "the praise of His glory." Since God's the source of everything that exists, our life makes sense and makes a difference when we bring people back to that source. So, what does it mean to "glorify God?" Well, think binoculars. It's making Him look as big as He really is to the people we meet.
They have no idea what an awesome, loving, totally powerful Father He is. We're to live in such a way that we draw attention to the greatness of our Father. And how do we do that? By living in such a way that we bring Him close to people who otherwise might never see Him or never touch Him.
Jesus said we were to be a light shining so "people will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). So here's one good way to see if you're carrying out the purpose you were made for: When people are around you, do they end up being impressed with your God? If not, you must be filling their view with something else, like with you...how great you are, or how many problems you have, or how stressed you are, or just the trivia of your life.
They may know you as a happy person, a caring person, a strong person, but have you ever told them it's because of what Jesus has done for you? Have you ever prayed with them when they share a need with you so they can taste that relationship with a miracle-working God? Do you ask in every situation, "Lord, how can you use this to draw people to you?"
That's the mind and heart of someone who knows why they're here. God's looking for some human binoculars-like you-that will bring Him close so people can see how very big and how very close He really is.
Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over. After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill. “I’ll take this,” he said. Guess what? I let him do what he wanted to do. I let him take it away.
Someday we will stand before God. All of us will be present. All of us will have to give an account for our lives…every thought, every deed, every action. Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought. Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29 Phillips).
On that day, I will point to Christ. When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.” Let him take yours.
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Genesis 1
Heaven and Earth
1-2 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
3-5 God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
6-8 God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters;
separate water from water!”
God made sky.
He separated the water under sky
from the water above sky.
And there it was:
he named sky the Heavens;
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Two.
9-10 God spoke: “Separate!
Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;
Land, appear!”
And there it was.
God named the land Earth.
He named the pooled water Ocean.
God saw that it was good.
11-13 God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
of seed-bearing plants,
Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
And there it was.
Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
all varieties,
And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Three.
14-15 God spoke: “Lights! Come out!
Shine in Heaven’s sky!
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons and days and years,
Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”
And there it was.
16-19 God made two big lights, the larger
to take charge of Day,
The smaller to be in charge of Night;
and he made the stars.
God placed them in the heavenly sky
to light up Earth
And oversee Day and Night,
to separate light and dark.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Four.
20-23 God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
24-25 God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
29-30 Then God said, “I’ve given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning— Day Six.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Read: Psalm 73:21–28 |
When I was beleaguered and bitter,
totally consumed by envy,
I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox
in your very presence.
I’m still in your presence,
but you’ve taken my hand.
You wisely and tenderly lead me,
and then you bless me.
25-28 You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—
oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God, I’m telling the world what you do!
INSIGHT
In Philippians 4:12, the key verse for today, the apostle Paul says he’s learned the secret of being content. Yet for Paul, life wasn’t easy—especially life as an evangelist. In another letter written by him, Paul lists the many trials he faced: five times he was brutally whipped, three times beaten with rods, and once pelted with stones. He was in danger at sea and on land, was imprisoned several times, and often went without sleep or food (see 2 Cor. 11:23–27). How could Paul be content in such difficult circumstances? What was his “secret”? He wrote, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). Because of the strength God gave him, Paul could be content “whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (v. 12).
Do you struggle with contentment? Ask God to give you the strength to be content in your situation.-Alyson Kieda
The Best Portion of All
By James Banks
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Philippians 4:12
“His piece is bigger than mine!”
When I was a boy my brothers and I would sometimes bicker about the size of the piece of homemade pie mom served us. One day Dad observed our antics with a lifted eyebrow, and smiled at Mom as he lifted his plate: “Please just give me a piece as big as your heart.” My brothers and I watched in stunned silence as Mom laughed and offered him the largest portion of all.
When we are His, He is ours, forever.
If we focus on others’ possessions, jealousy too often results. Yet God’s Word lifts our eyes to something of far greater worth than earthly possessions. The psalmist writes, “You are my portion, Lord; I have promised to obey your words. I have sought your face with all my heart” (Ps. 119:57–58). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the writer conveyed the truth that nothing matters more than closeness to God.
What better portion could we have than our loving and limitless Creator? Nothing on earth can compare with Him, and nothing can take Him away from us. Human longing is an expansive void; one may have “everything” in the world and still be miserable. But when God is our source of happiness, we are truly content. There’s a space within us only God can fill. He alone can give us the peace that matches our hearts.
Loving Lord, thank You that nothing and no one can meet my every need like You can.
When we are His, He is ours, forever.
You have made us for yourself, Lord. Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in You. Augustine of Hippo
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible is the only Book that gives us any indication of the true nature of sin, and where it came from. The Philosophy of Sin, 1107 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Binoculars for God - #8007
Usually a total eclipse of the moon seems to happen when I'm counting sheep in the middle of the night. But this one started about 9:00 at night, and this one I got a chance to see. It's a pretty amazing sight to watch that shadow slowly move across the moon until it eventually covers it completely. I said to the friend who was assisting us with ministry that weekend, "I just wish we had binoculars." "Me, too," he said. Then it dawned on him, he said, "Hey, I do have binoculars in my truck!" All of a sudden we moved from seats near the back to something like front row seats on this eclipse. Those binoculars revealed the craters and all the fascinating details of that disappearing moon. What a difference it made to see it up close!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Binoculars for God."
Whether it's watching the heavens or watching some faraway wildlife right here on earth, binoculars really do make a difference. They make it big by bringing it close, which is exactly what you're supposed to be doing with the God you belong to-making Him big to the people around you by bringing Him close. I guess that would make you binoculars for God.
The famed Westminster Catechism of the Christian faith opens with this powerful summary of why we're all here: "The chief end of man is to glorify God." That's really clear in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 1, beginning with verses 5 and 6. Like the Hubble Telescope, this passage shows us things about our spiritual universe that we could never see without it. Like the purpose for our lives, for example.
The Bible says: "He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." Before there was a world, before there was a you, God had a plan for you to rescue you through His Son, so you could live as it says, for "the praise of His glorious grace."
Verses 11 and 12 talk about His plan, "the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will..." And what is His purpose that guides His plan? "...that we might be for the praise of His glory." Later, it says He bought us with blood to be for this ultimate outcome: "To the praise of His glory."
Okay, God believes in what management consultants call MBO-Management By Objective. Since before there was a world, right up to you and me this day and right on through to eternity, God's running His plan by one objective, "the praise of His glory." Since God's the source of everything that exists, our life makes sense and makes a difference when we bring people back to that source. So, what does it mean to "glorify God?" Well, think binoculars. It's making Him look as big as He really is to the people we meet.
They have no idea what an awesome, loving, totally powerful Father He is. We're to live in such a way that we draw attention to the greatness of our Father. And how do we do that? By living in such a way that we bring Him close to people who otherwise might never see Him or never touch Him.
Jesus said we were to be a light shining so "people will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). So here's one good way to see if you're carrying out the purpose you were made for: When people are around you, do they end up being impressed with your God? If not, you must be filling their view with something else, like with you...how great you are, or how many problems you have, or how stressed you are, or just the trivia of your life.
They may know you as a happy person, a caring person, a strong person, but have you ever told them it's because of what Jesus has done for you? Have you ever prayed with them when they share a need with you so they can taste that relationship with a miracle-working God? Do you ask in every situation, "Lord, how can you use this to draw people to you?"
That's the mind and heart of someone who knows why they're here. God's looking for some human binoculars-like you-that will bring Him close so people can see how very big and how very close He really is.
Monday, September 18, 2017
Revelation 22 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A GREAT GRACE
I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace! I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church auditorium. I might be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me. I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life.
But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin. At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace. Iron chains couldn’t have held me back. Truth be told, chains had held me back. But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free.
I know this truth firsthand: Guilt frenzies the soul but grace calms it! The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Revelation 22
1-5 Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer God service—worshiping, they’ll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring God. Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs. And they will rule with him age after age after age.
Don’t Put It Away on the Shelf
6-7 The Angel said to me, “These are dependable and accurate words, every one. The God and Master of the spirits of the prophets sent his Angel to show his servants what must take place, and soon. And tell them, ‘Yes, I’m on my way!’ Blessed be the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
8-9 I, John, saw all these things with my own eyes, heard them with my ears. Immediately when I heard and saw, I fell on my face to worship at the feet of the Angel who laid it all out before me. He objected, “No you don’t! I’m a servant just like you and your companions, the prophets, and all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
10-11 The Angel continued, “Don’t seal the words of the prophecy of this book; don’t put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up. Let evildoers do their worst and the dirty-minded go all out in pollution, but let the righteous maintain a straight course and the holy continue on in holiness.”
12-13 “Yes, I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon! I’m bringing my payroll with me. I’ll pay all people in full for their life’s work. I’m A to Z, the First and the Final, Beginning and Conclusion.
14-15 “How blessed are those who wash their robes! The Tree of Life is theirs for good, and they’ll walk through the gates to the City. But outside for good are the filthy curs: sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters—all who love and live lies.
16 “I, Jesus, sent my Angel to testify to these things for the churches. I’m the Root and Branch of David, the Bright Morning Star.”
17 “Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride.
Whoever hears, echo, “Come!”
Is anyone thirsty? Come!
All who will, come and drink,
Drink freely of the Water of Life!
18-19 I give fair warning to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophecy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book; if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book.
20 He who testifies to all these things says it again: “I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon!”
Yes! Come, Master Jesus!
21 The grace of the Master Jesus be with all of you. Oh, Yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 18, 2017
Read: Hebrews 12:1–3
Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
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
Have you ever walked away from a parent, teacher, coach, or military officer you thought was being too hard on you?
The men and women of faith listed in Hebrews 11 must have wondered at times whether their God was asking more of them than they could possibly give. Yet through doubt, personal failure, and unfulfilled dreams, the Bible gives all of them honorable mention—as witnesses to the faith that has been entrusted to us.
Now it’s our turn. When we face fears, we have the opportunity to follow the One who asks us to trust Him in a way that lifts us above own natural inclinations. This is a moment to remember the lingering witness of Jesus’s own disciples who so often heard the words, “Don’t be afraid.” From the stories of those who have gone before us, we are reminded that it was on a road of faith that Jesus and His witnesses suffered to bring others to God.
Jesus invites us to experience for ourselves the honor of being witnesses to His faithfulness even when we struggle to trust Him. -Mart DeHaan
Watch the Conductor
By David C. McCasland
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1–2
World-renowned violinist, Joshua Bell, has an unusual way of leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, a forty-four-member chamber orchestra. Instead of waving a baton he directs while playing his Stradivarius with the other violinists. Bell told Colorado Public Radio, “Even while I’m playing I can give them all kinds of direction and signals that I think only they would understand at this point. They know by every little dip in my violin, or raise in my eyebrow, or the way I draw the bow. They know the sound I’m looking for from the entire orchestra.”
Just as the orchestra members watch Joshua Bell, the Bible instructs us to keep our eyes on Jesus our Lord. After listing many heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, the writer says, “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, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:1–2).
Let us keep our eyes on Jesus our Savior as He directs our lives.
Jesus promised, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Because He is, we have the amazing privilege of keeping our eyes on Him while He conducts the music of our lives.
Lord, our eyes look to You this day so we may follow Your direction and live in harmony with You.
Let us keep our eyes on Jesus our Savior as He directs our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 18, 2017
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things— he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 18, 2017
Spiritual Surfing - #8006
Over the years, our family has had some great times at the New Jersey Shore. And I love to see the Atlantic Ocean with all of its many moods: relatively calm, tide out, tide in, building surf, towering breakers, even angry in a storm. When the waves really start getting high, most swimmers make a wise choice; they get out of the water and they call it a day. But there's another breed out there. They're called surfers. Some on surfboards, some body-surfing, and they don't run out when the monster waves start coming. No, they run in! And they ride those monsters!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Spiritual Surfing."
Oswald Chambers, the author of "My Utmost for His Highest," suggests that those huge waves that frighten the average swimmer will actually thrill a surfer; same wave, two different perspectives. To one, the big wave is something to run from. To another, the big wave is something to ride.
Well, it's that way with all of us, when some of life's monster waves come crashing in on us. Maybe some awful news, or a challenge we just don't have the resources to meet. Maybe that kind of pounding surf is washing over you right now, and you feel like it's threatening to drown you. And as you look ahead, all you can see is more waves that look like liquid mountains out there.
When the big waves start hitting, you can sink or you can surf. Staying on top of the waves was Paul's choice in our word for today from the Word of God. It can be your choice, too, if you ride the unsinkable board that he did. It's recorded in Romans 8:37-39. Paul begins, "In all these things..." Which should make us ask, "What things?"
Well, the preceding verse talks about trouble, hardship, not having life-necessities like food or clothes, suffering for what you believe, danger, even death. So, "In all these things (In other words, the worst things that can happen to you in life), we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." More than conquerors. That means you can actually be on top of the waves instead of having the waves on top of you. Not because you're so strong, but because you're sustained and empowered by the greatest love in the universe.
Paul says he can win through any bombardment for one reason: "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other words, you can look squarely at the most daunting waves and say defiantly, "Jesus loves me. This I know!"
So, if you've anchored your life to Jesus Christ, there's nothing any wave, any storm can possibly do to touch the anchor of your life. You are loved by God, and whatever is bigger than you are, He is bigger than it is! If your life-anchor is anything or anyone else, the big waves are ultimately going to swamp you and they're going to take what you've been hanging onto.
God's master plan for you is to make you as much like Jesus as you can possibly become. And the stormy seas can be for you the times when you say, "I'm going to ride this wave to let it make me more like Jesus than I've ever been before." He wouldn't let it hit you unless it could be for His glory, your good, and your growth.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, then when life's crushing waves come crashing in on you, you will have the Son of God there right beside you, holding you tight, and making you unsinkable.
I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace! I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church auditorium. I might be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me. I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life.
But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin. At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace. Iron chains couldn’t have held me back. Truth be told, chains had held me back. But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free.
I know this truth firsthand: Guilt frenzies the soul but grace calms it! The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Revelation 22
1-5 Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer God service—worshiping, they’ll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring God. Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs. And they will rule with him age after age after age.
Don’t Put It Away on the Shelf
6-7 The Angel said to me, “These are dependable and accurate words, every one. The God and Master of the spirits of the prophets sent his Angel to show his servants what must take place, and soon. And tell them, ‘Yes, I’m on my way!’ Blessed be the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
8-9 I, John, saw all these things with my own eyes, heard them with my ears. Immediately when I heard and saw, I fell on my face to worship at the feet of the Angel who laid it all out before me. He objected, “No you don’t! I’m a servant just like you and your companions, the prophets, and all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
10-11 The Angel continued, “Don’t seal the words of the prophecy of this book; don’t put it away on the shelf. Time is just about up. Let evildoers do their worst and the dirty-minded go all out in pollution, but let the righteous maintain a straight course and the holy continue on in holiness.”
12-13 “Yes, I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon! I’m bringing my payroll with me. I’ll pay all people in full for their life’s work. I’m A to Z, the First and the Final, Beginning and Conclusion.
14-15 “How blessed are those who wash their robes! The Tree of Life is theirs for good, and they’ll walk through the gates to the City. But outside for good are the filthy curs: sorcerers, fornicators, murderers, idolaters—all who love and live lies.
16 “I, Jesus, sent my Angel to testify to these things for the churches. I’m the Root and Branch of David, the Bright Morning Star.”
17 “Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride.
Whoever hears, echo, “Come!”
Is anyone thirsty? Come!
All who will, come and drink,
Drink freely of the Water of Life!
18-19 I give fair warning to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophecy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book; if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book.
20 He who testifies to all these things says it again: “I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon!”
Yes! Come, Master Jesus!
21 The grace of the Master Jesus be with all of you. Oh, Yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 18, 2017
Read: Hebrews 12:1–3
Discipline in a Long-Distance Race
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
Have you ever walked away from a parent, teacher, coach, or military officer you thought was being too hard on you?
The men and women of faith listed in Hebrews 11 must have wondered at times whether their God was asking more of them than they could possibly give. Yet through doubt, personal failure, and unfulfilled dreams, the Bible gives all of them honorable mention—as witnesses to the faith that has been entrusted to us.
Now it’s our turn. When we face fears, we have the opportunity to follow the One who asks us to trust Him in a way that lifts us above own natural inclinations. This is a moment to remember the lingering witness of Jesus’s own disciples who so often heard the words, “Don’t be afraid.” From the stories of those who have gone before us, we are reminded that it was on a road of faith that Jesus and His witnesses suffered to bring others to God.
Jesus invites us to experience for ourselves the honor of being witnesses to His faithfulness even when we struggle to trust Him. -Mart DeHaan
Watch the Conductor
By David C. McCasland
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. Hebrews 12:1–2
World-renowned violinist, Joshua Bell, has an unusual way of leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, a forty-four-member chamber orchestra. Instead of waving a baton he directs while playing his Stradivarius with the other violinists. Bell told Colorado Public Radio, “Even while I’m playing I can give them all kinds of direction and signals that I think only they would understand at this point. They know by every little dip in my violin, or raise in my eyebrow, or the way I draw the bow. They know the sound I’m looking for from the entire orchestra.”
Just as the orchestra members watch Joshua Bell, the Bible instructs us to keep our eyes on Jesus our Lord. After listing many heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, the writer says, “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, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:1–2).
Let us keep our eyes on Jesus our Savior as He directs our lives.
Jesus promised, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Because He is, we have the amazing privilege of keeping our eyes on Him while He conducts the music of our lives.
Lord, our eyes look to You this day so we may follow Your direction and live in harmony with You.
Let us keep our eyes on Jesus our Savior as He directs our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 18, 2017
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things— he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 18, 2017
Spiritual Surfing - #8006
Over the years, our family has had some great times at the New Jersey Shore. And I love to see the Atlantic Ocean with all of its many moods: relatively calm, tide out, tide in, building surf, towering breakers, even angry in a storm. When the waves really start getting high, most swimmers make a wise choice; they get out of the water and they call it a day. But there's another breed out there. They're called surfers. Some on surfboards, some body-surfing, and they don't run out when the monster waves start coming. No, they run in! And they ride those monsters!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Spiritual Surfing."
Oswald Chambers, the author of "My Utmost for His Highest," suggests that those huge waves that frighten the average swimmer will actually thrill a surfer; same wave, two different perspectives. To one, the big wave is something to run from. To another, the big wave is something to ride.
Well, it's that way with all of us, when some of life's monster waves come crashing in on us. Maybe some awful news, or a challenge we just don't have the resources to meet. Maybe that kind of pounding surf is washing over you right now, and you feel like it's threatening to drown you. And as you look ahead, all you can see is more waves that look like liquid mountains out there.
When the big waves start hitting, you can sink or you can surf. Staying on top of the waves was Paul's choice in our word for today from the Word of God. It can be your choice, too, if you ride the unsinkable board that he did. It's recorded in Romans 8:37-39. Paul begins, "In all these things..." Which should make us ask, "What things?"
Well, the preceding verse talks about trouble, hardship, not having life-necessities like food or clothes, suffering for what you believe, danger, even death. So, "In all these things (In other words, the worst things that can happen to you in life), we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." More than conquerors. That means you can actually be on top of the waves instead of having the waves on top of you. Not because you're so strong, but because you're sustained and empowered by the greatest love in the universe.
Paul says he can win through any bombardment for one reason: "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." In other words, you can look squarely at the most daunting waves and say defiantly, "Jesus loves me. This I know!"
So, if you've anchored your life to Jesus Christ, there's nothing any wave, any storm can possibly do to touch the anchor of your life. You are loved by God, and whatever is bigger than you are, He is bigger than it is! If your life-anchor is anything or anyone else, the big waves are ultimately going to swamp you and they're going to take what you've been hanging onto.
God's master plan for you is to make you as much like Jesus as you can possibly become. And the stormy seas can be for you the times when you say, "I'm going to ride this wave to let it make me more like Jesus than I've ever been before." He wouldn't let it hit you unless it could be for His glory, your good, and your growth.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, then when life's crushing waves come crashing in on you, you will have the Son of God there right beside you, holding you tight, and making you unsinkable.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Malachi 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: The Achievement of God
How can God punish the sin and love the sinner? Ponder the achievement of God. He doesn't condone our sin, nor does he compromise his standard. He doesn't ignore our rebellion, nor does he relax his demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, he assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences himself. God's holiness is honored. Our sin is punished. And we are redeemed.
Hebrews 10:14 explains, "With one sacrifice he made perfect forever those who are being made holy." God does what we cannot do, so we can be what we dare not dream…perfect before him. He canceled our debt. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross. It was and is an unspeakable gift of grace!
From In the Grip of Grace
Malachi 3
The Master You’ve Been Looking For
“Look! I’m sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you’ve been looking for will enter his Temple—yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you’ve been waiting for. Look! He’s on his way!” A Message from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
2-4 But who will be able to stand up to that coming? Who can survive his appearance?
He’ll be like white-hot fire from the smelter’s furnace. He’ll be like the strongest lye soap at the laundry. He’ll take his place as a refiner of silver, as a cleanser of dirty clothes. He’ll scrub the Levite priests clean, refine them like gold and silver, until they’re fit for God, fit to present offerings of righteousness. Then, and only then, will Judah and Jerusalem be fit and pleasing to God, as they used to be in the years long ago.
5 “Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless—anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
6-7 “I am God—yes, I Am. I haven’t changed. And because I haven’t changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven’t been destroyed. You have a long history of ignoring my commands. You haven’t done a thing I’ve told you. Return to me so I can return to you,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
“You ask, ‘But how do we return?’
8-11 “Begin by being honest. Do honest people rob God? But you rob me day after day.
“You ask, ‘How have we robbed you?’
“The tithe and the offering—that’s how! And now you’re under a curse—the whole lot of you—because you’re robbing me. Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don’t open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers.” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
12 “You’ll be voted ‘Happiest Nation.’ You’ll experience what it’s like to be a country of grace.” God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.
The Difference Between Serving God and Not Serving Him
13 God says, “You have spoken hard, rude words to me.
“You ask, ‘When did we ever do that?’
14-15 “When you said, ‘It doesn’t pay to serve God. What do we ever get out of it? When we did what he said and went around with long faces, serious about God-of-the-Angel-Armies, what difference did it make? Those who take life into their own hands are the lucky ones. They break all the rules and get ahead anyway. They push God to the limit and get by with it.’”
16 Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name.
17-18 God-of-the-Angel-Armies said, “They’re mine, all mine. They’ll get special treatment when I go into action. I treat them with the same consideration and kindness that parents give the child who honors them. Once more you’ll see the difference it makes between being a person who does the right thing and one who doesn’t, between serving God and not serving him.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Read: Philemon 1:8–16
To Call the Slave Your Friend
8-9 In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ’s ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn’t hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I’d rather make it a personal request.
10-14 While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message. But I didn’t want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn’t willingly agreed to.
15-16 Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.
INSIGHT
After reading the book of Philemon, questions sometimes arise such as, “How can I trust a Bible that tolerated slavery?” and “When Paul had the opportunity to condemn slavery outright, why didn’t he do it?” One thing to keep in mind is that slavery in ancient times was different than our concept of slavery today. For example, in the Roman Empire slaves could work toward and achieve freedom. Paul is actually suggesting a change that goes far deeper than an institution change. When Paul asks that Onesimus be taken back and viewed as a brother, he is ultimately dismantling the mindset that segregates people. The Scriptures deal with how we think and not simply how we act. - J.R. Hudberg
Removing the Barriers
By Karen Wolfe
He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. Philemon 1:16
I saw Mary every Tuesday when I visited “the House”—a home that helps former prisoners reintegrate into society. My life looked different from hers: fresh out of jail, fighting addictions, separated from her son. You might say she lived on the edge of society.
Like Mary, Onesimus knew what it meant to live on the edge of society. As a slave, Onesimus had apparently wronged his Christian master, Philemon, and was now in prison. While there, he met Paul and came to faith in Christ (v. 10). Though now a changed man, Onesimus was still a slave. Paul sent him back to Philemon with a letter urging him to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother” (Philem. 1:16).
The gospel changes people and relationships.
Philemon had a choice to make: He could treat Onesimus as his slave or welcome him as a brother in Christ. I had a choice to make too. Would I see Mary as an ex-convict and a recovering addict—or as a woman whose life is being changed by the power of Christ? Mary was my sister in the Lord, and we were privileged to walk together in our journey of faith.
It’s easy to allow the walls of socio-economic status, class, or cultural differences to separate us. The gospel of Christ removes those barriers, changing our lives and our relationships forever.
Dear God, thank You that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives and relationships. Thank You for removing the barriers between us and making us all members of Your family.
The gospel changes people and relationships.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man… —1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person’s inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal— it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don’t know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else— what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations— He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
How can God punish the sin and love the sinner? Ponder the achievement of God. He doesn't condone our sin, nor does he compromise his standard. He doesn't ignore our rebellion, nor does he relax his demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, he assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences himself. God's holiness is honored. Our sin is punished. And we are redeemed.
Hebrews 10:14 explains, "With one sacrifice he made perfect forever those who are being made holy." God does what we cannot do, so we can be what we dare not dream…perfect before him. He canceled our debt. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross. It was and is an unspeakable gift of grace!
From In the Grip of Grace
Malachi 3
The Master You’ve Been Looking For
“Look! I’m sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you’ve been looking for will enter his Temple—yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you’ve been waiting for. Look! He’s on his way!” A Message from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
2-4 But who will be able to stand up to that coming? Who can survive his appearance?
He’ll be like white-hot fire from the smelter’s furnace. He’ll be like the strongest lye soap at the laundry. He’ll take his place as a refiner of silver, as a cleanser of dirty clothes. He’ll scrub the Levite priests clean, refine them like gold and silver, until they’re fit for God, fit to present offerings of righteousness. Then, and only then, will Judah and Jerusalem be fit and pleasing to God, as they used to be in the years long ago.
5 “Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgment. I’ll present compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless—anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
6-7 “I am God—yes, I Am. I haven’t changed. And because I haven’t changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven’t been destroyed. You have a long history of ignoring my commands. You haven’t done a thing I’ve told you. Return to me so I can return to you,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
“You ask, ‘But how do we return?’
8-11 “Begin by being honest. Do honest people rob God? But you rob me day after day.
“You ask, ‘How have we robbed you?’
“The tithe and the offering—that’s how! And now you’re under a curse—the whole lot of you—because you’re robbing me. Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple. Test me in this and see if I don’t open up heaven itself to you and pour out blessings beyond your wildest dreams. For my part, I will defend you against marauders, protect your wheat fields and vegetable gardens against plunderers.” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
12 “You’ll be voted ‘Happiest Nation.’ You’ll experience what it’s like to be a country of grace.” God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.
The Difference Between Serving God and Not Serving Him
13 God says, “You have spoken hard, rude words to me.
“You ask, ‘When did we ever do that?’
14-15 “When you said, ‘It doesn’t pay to serve God. What do we ever get out of it? When we did what he said and went around with long faces, serious about God-of-the-Angel-Armies, what difference did it make? Those who take life into their own hands are the lucky ones. They break all the rules and get ahead anyway. They push God to the limit and get by with it.’”
16 Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name.
17-18 God-of-the-Angel-Armies said, “They’re mine, all mine. They’ll get special treatment when I go into action. I treat them with the same consideration and kindness that parents give the child who honors them. Once more you’ll see the difference it makes between being a person who does the right thing and one who doesn’t, between serving God and not serving him.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Read: Philemon 1:8–16
To Call the Slave Your Friend
8-9 In line with all this I have a favor to ask of you. As Christ’s ambassador and now a prisoner for him, I wouldn’t hesitate to command this if I thought it necessary, but I’d rather make it a personal request.
10-14 While here in jail, I’ve fathered a child, so to speak. And here he is, hand-carrying this letter—Onesimus! He was useless to you before; now he’s useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, but it feels like I’m cutting off my right arm in doing so. I wanted in the worst way to keep him here as your stand-in to help out while I’m in jail for the Message. But I didn’t want to do anything behind your back, make you do a good deed that you hadn’t willingly agreed to.
15-16 Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.
INSIGHT
After reading the book of Philemon, questions sometimes arise such as, “How can I trust a Bible that tolerated slavery?” and “When Paul had the opportunity to condemn slavery outright, why didn’t he do it?” One thing to keep in mind is that slavery in ancient times was different than our concept of slavery today. For example, in the Roman Empire slaves could work toward and achieve freedom. Paul is actually suggesting a change that goes far deeper than an institution change. When Paul asks that Onesimus be taken back and viewed as a brother, he is ultimately dismantling the mindset that segregates people. The Scriptures deal with how we think and not simply how we act. - J.R. Hudberg
Removing the Barriers
By Karen Wolfe
He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. Philemon 1:16
I saw Mary every Tuesday when I visited “the House”—a home that helps former prisoners reintegrate into society. My life looked different from hers: fresh out of jail, fighting addictions, separated from her son. You might say she lived on the edge of society.
Like Mary, Onesimus knew what it meant to live on the edge of society. As a slave, Onesimus had apparently wronged his Christian master, Philemon, and was now in prison. While there, he met Paul and came to faith in Christ (v. 10). Though now a changed man, Onesimus was still a slave. Paul sent him back to Philemon with a letter urging him to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother” (Philem. 1:16).
The gospel changes people and relationships.
Philemon had a choice to make: He could treat Onesimus as his slave or welcome him as a brother in Christ. I had a choice to make too. Would I see Mary as an ex-convict and a recovering addict—or as a woman whose life is being changed by the power of Christ? Mary was my sister in the Lord, and we were privileged to walk together in our journey of faith.
It’s easy to allow the walls of socio-economic status, class, or cultural differences to separate us. The gospel of Christ removes those barriers, changing our lives and our relationships forever.
Dear God, thank You that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives and relationships. Thank You for removing the barriers between us and making us all members of Your family.
The gospel changes people and relationships.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Is There Good in Temptation?
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man… —1 Corinthians 10:13
The word temptation has come to mean something bad to us today, but we tend to use the word in the wrong way. Temptation itself is not sin; it is something we are bound to face simply by virtue of being human. Not to be tempted would mean that we were already so shameful that we would be beneath contempt. Yet many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to suffer, simply because we have refused to allow God to lift us to a higher level where we would face temptations of another kind.
A person’s inner nature, what he possesses in the inner, spiritual part of his being, determines what he is tempted by on the outside. The temptation fits the true nature of the person being tempted and reveals the possibilities of his nature. Every person actually determines or sets the level of his own temptation, because temptation will come to him in accordance with the level of his controlling, inner nature.
Temptation comes to me, suggesting a possible shortcut to the realization of my highest goal— it does not direct me toward what I understand to be evil, but toward what I understand to be good. Temptation is something that confuses me for a while, and I don’t know whether something is right or wrong. When I yield to it, I have made lust a god, and the temptation itself becomes the proof that it was only my own fear that prevented me from falling into the sin earlier.
Temptation is not something we can escape; in fact, it is essential to the well-rounded life of a person. Beware of thinking that you are tempted as no one else— what you go through is the common inheritance of the human race, not something that no one has ever before endured. God does not save us from temptations— He sustains us in the midst of them (see Hebrews 2:18 and Hebrews 4:15-16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Revelation 21, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A New Plan
As children, the minute we got home from school we would hit the pavement. The kid across the street had a dad with a great arm and a strong addiction to football. He couldn't resist when we would yell for him to play ball. He'd always ask, "Which team is losing?" Then he'd join that team, which often seemed to be mine. His appearance changed the whole ball game. He was confident, strong, and most of all, had a plan. "Okay boys, here's what we are going to do." You see, we not only had a new plan, we had a new leader. He brought new life to our team.
God does precisely the same. We didn't need a new play; we needed a new plan. We needed a new player, Jesus Christ, God's firstborn Son. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come."
From In the Grip of Grace
Revelation 21
Everything New
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.
2 I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.
3-5 I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”
6-8 Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me. But for the rest—the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it’s Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!”
The City of Light
9-12 One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the seven final disasters spoke to me: “Come here. I’ll show you the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb.” He took me away in the Spirit to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God.
12-14 The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light. She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west. The wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed on them.
15-21 The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the City, its gates, and its wall. The City was laid out in a perfect square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand stadia, its length, width, and height all equal. Using the standard measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits. The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. The foundations of the City walls were garnished with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single pearl.
21-27 The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth’s kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won’t be any night. They’ll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will get in.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Read: Ephesians 4:15, 26–32
No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.
INSIGHT
One reason it is sometimes hard to admit we are angry when someone offends us is that we fear what others might think of us. But acknowledging anger and providing a time limit on resolving issues is essential in keeping harmonious relationships intact. “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) to the one who has offended us is vital, even if it means stepping outside our comfort zone. This scriptural approach to conflict resolution helps to clear the air and restore relationships. Explaining to the offending party what was hurtful and listening to the other person’s perspective lays the groundwork for healthy relationships. When we keep love in the picture, our goal becomes restoration.-Dennis Fisher
Anger Management
By Linda Washington
In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. Ephesians 4:26
As I had dinner with a friend, she expressed how fed up she was with a particular family member. But she was reluctant to say anything to him about his annoying habit of ignoring or mocking her. When she did try to confront him about the problem, he responded with sarcastic remarks. She exploded in anger at him. Both parties wound up digging in their heels, and the family rift widened.
I can relate, because I handle anger the same way. I also have a hard time confronting people. If a friend or family member says something mean, I usually suppress how I feel until that person or someone else comes along and says or does something else mean. After a while, I explode.
Heavenly Father, may the words that we speak bring honor to You.
Maybe that’s why the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:26 said, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” Providing a time limit on unresolved issues keeps anger in check. Instead of stewing over a wrong, which is a breeding ground for bitterness, we can ask God for help to “[speak] the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15).
Got a problem with someone? Rather than hold it in, hold it up to God first. He can fight the fire of anger with the power of His forgiveness and love.
Heavenly Father, please guard us from uncontrolled anger. May the words that we speak bring honor to You.
For help in managing anger, go to discoveryseries.org/cb942.
Put out the fire of anger before it blazes out of control.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place… —Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is— keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions…” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
“Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer— but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, “…you will ask what you desire…” (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, “Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask.” But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
As children, the minute we got home from school we would hit the pavement. The kid across the street had a dad with a great arm and a strong addiction to football. He couldn't resist when we would yell for him to play ball. He'd always ask, "Which team is losing?" Then he'd join that team, which often seemed to be mine. His appearance changed the whole ball game. He was confident, strong, and most of all, had a plan. "Okay boys, here's what we are going to do." You see, we not only had a new plan, we had a new leader. He brought new life to our team.
God does precisely the same. We didn't need a new play; we needed a new plan. We needed a new player, Jesus Christ, God's firstborn Son. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come."
From In the Grip of Grace
Revelation 21
Everything New
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.
2 I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.
3-5 I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”
6-8 Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me. But for the rest—the feckless and faithless, degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars—for them it’s Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!”
The City of Light
9-12 One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the seven final disasters spoke to me: “Come here. I’ll show you the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb.” He took me away in the Spirit to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God.
12-14 The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light. She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve Tribes of the sons of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west. The wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb inscribed on them.
15-21 The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the City, its gates, and its wall. The City was laid out in a perfect square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand stadia, its length, width, and height all equal. Using the standard measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits. The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. The foundations of the City walls were garnished with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single pearl.
21-27 The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth’s kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won’t be any night. They’ll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will get in.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Read: Ephesians 4:15, 26–32
No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.
INSIGHT
One reason it is sometimes hard to admit we are angry when someone offends us is that we fear what others might think of us. But acknowledging anger and providing a time limit on resolving issues is essential in keeping harmonious relationships intact. “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) to the one who has offended us is vital, even if it means stepping outside our comfort zone. This scriptural approach to conflict resolution helps to clear the air and restore relationships. Explaining to the offending party what was hurtful and listening to the other person’s perspective lays the groundwork for healthy relationships. When we keep love in the picture, our goal becomes restoration.-Dennis Fisher
Anger Management
By Linda Washington
In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. Ephesians 4:26
As I had dinner with a friend, she expressed how fed up she was with a particular family member. But she was reluctant to say anything to him about his annoying habit of ignoring or mocking her. When she did try to confront him about the problem, he responded with sarcastic remarks. She exploded in anger at him. Both parties wound up digging in their heels, and the family rift widened.
I can relate, because I handle anger the same way. I also have a hard time confronting people. If a friend or family member says something mean, I usually suppress how I feel until that person or someone else comes along and says or does something else mean. After a while, I explode.
Heavenly Father, may the words that we speak bring honor to You.
Maybe that’s why the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:26 said, “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” Providing a time limit on unresolved issues keeps anger in check. Instead of stewing over a wrong, which is a breeding ground for bitterness, we can ask God for help to “[speak] the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15).
Got a problem with someone? Rather than hold it in, hold it up to God first. He can fight the fire of anger with the power of His forgiveness and love.
Heavenly Father, please guard us from uncontrolled anger. May the words that we speak bring honor to You.
For help in managing anger, go to discoveryseries.org/cb942.
Put out the fire of anger before it blazes out of control.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place… —Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is— keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions…” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
“Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer— but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, “…you will ask what you desire…” (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, “Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask.” But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
Friday, September 15, 2017
Malachi 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: UNRESOLVED GUILT
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, or pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David probably wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).
As the apostle Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation is available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Malachi 2
Desecrating the Holiness of God
1-3 “And now this indictment, you priests! If you refuse to obediently listen, and if you refuse to honor me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, in worship, then I’ll put you under a curse. I’ll exchange all your blessings for curses. In fact, the curses are already at work because you’re not serious about honoring me. Yes, and the curse will extend to your children. I’m going to plaster your faces with rotting garbage, garbage thrown out from your feasts. That’s what you have to look forward to!
4-6 “Maybe that will wake you up. Maybe then you’ll realize that I’m indicting you in order to put new life into my covenant with the priests of Levi, the covenant of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. My covenant with Levi was to give life and peace. I kept my covenant with him, and he honored me. He stood in reverent awe before me. He taught the truth and did not lie. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. He kept many out of the ditch, kept them on the road.
7-9 “It’s the job of priests to teach the truth. People are supposed to look to them for guidance. The priest is the messenger of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. But you priests have abandoned the way of priests. Your teaching has messed up many lives. You have corrupted the covenant of priest Levi. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so. And so I am showing you up for who you are. Everyone will be disgusted with you and avoid you because you don’t live the way I told you to live, and you don’t teach my revelation truly and impartially.”
10 Don’t we all come from one Father? Aren’t we all created by the same God? So why can’t we get along? Why do we desecrate the covenant of our ancestors that binds us together?
11-12 Judah has cheated on God—a sickening violation of trust in Israel and Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the holiness of God by falling in love and running off with foreign women, women who worship alien gods. God’s curse on those who do this! Drive them out of house and home! They’re no longer fit to be part of the community no matter how many offerings they bring to God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
13-15 And here’s a second offense: You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don’t get what you want from God. Do you know why? Simple. Because God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you’ve broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife. God, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse.
16 “I hate divorce,” says the God of Israel. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.
17 You make God tired with all your talk.
“How do we tire him out?” you ask.
By saying, “God loves sinners and sin alike. God loves all.” And also by saying, “Judgment? God’s too nice to judge.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 15, 2017
Read: John 8:39–47
They were indignant. “Our father is Abraham!”
Jesus said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did. And yet here you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth he got straight from God! Abraham never did that sort of thing. You persist in repeating the works of your father.”
They said, “We’re not bastards. We have a legitimate father: the one and only God.”
42-47 “If God were your father,” said Jesus, “you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn’t come on my own. He sent me. Why can’t you understand one word I say? Here’s why: You can’t handle it. You’re from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn’t stand the truth because there wasn’t a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies. I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me. Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone on God’s side listens to God’s words. This is why you’re not listening—because you’re not on God’s side.”
INSIGHT
The Israelites of Jesus’s day had many Old Testament heroes, but three soared above the rest. David was the great king who established the city of Jerusalem and stabilized the kingdom. Moses was the leader who was given the law of God. He was God’s instrument of deliverance and led the Israelites to the threshold of the land of promise. But their most ancient hero was Abraham—the father of the faithful and the man whose faith was counted to him as righteousness. Jesus, however, surpasses this great heritage, for through Him we become children of God Himself.
Bill Crowder
What’s Your Father’s Name?
By Keila Ochoa
To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
When I went to buy a cell phone in the Middle East, I was asked the typical questions: name, nationality, address. But then as the clerk was filling out the form, he asked, “What’s your father’s name?” That question surprised me, and I wondered why it was important. Knowing my father’s name would not be important in my culture, but here it was necessary in order to establish my identity. In some cultures, ancestry is important.
The Israelites believed in the importance of ancestry too. They were proud of their patriarch Abraham, and they thought being part of Abraham's clan made them God's children. Their human ancestry was connected, in their opinion, to their spiritual family.
God is our Eternal Father.
Hundreds of years later when Jesus was talking with the Jews, He pointed out that this was not so. They could say Abraham was their earthly ancestor, but if they didn’t love Him—the One sent by the Father—they were not part of God’s family.
The same applies today. We don't choose our human family, but we can decide the spiritual family we belong to. If we believe in Jesus’s name, God gives us the right to become His children (John 1:12).
Who is your spiritual Father? Have you decided to follow Jesus? Let this be the day you trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and become part of God’s family.
Dear Lord, You are my heavenly and eternal Father. Thank You for Jesus, my Savior.
God is our Eternal Father.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 15, 2017
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame… —2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you “renounced the hidden things of shame” in your life— the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind— renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
“…not walking in craftiness…” (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way— the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way— the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others— God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest— your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 15, 2017
Repulsive Leftovers - #8005
If you've ever had a teenage son, you'll know this answer. When a teenage boy gets home from school, what's the first question he asks? Right! "What's for dinner?" Now one of our boys' un-favorite answers to that question was that dreaded "L" word-leftovers! By the way, that was especially scary after Thanksgiving...turkey would never end. Now leftovers aren't too many people's first choice for a meal. Right? And the longer they've been left over, the more unsatisfying that choice becomes. I know I've never been to a restaurant who offered an item called "leftovers". Let's face it. Leftovers, they're second best-at best.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Repulsive Leftovers."
No one gets very excited about leftovers-including God. But when God asks many of us, "What are you giving Me?" our honest answer would be, "Leftovers." In our word for today from the Word of God, God is telling His ancient people that they're showing contempt for Him, and these are people who are doing a lot of these religious things! He says they're disrespecting Him by bringing Him defiled offerings. He explains it in Malachi 1:8. Remember, God called for the sacrifice of only an unblemished, perfect animal.
Here's what He says: "When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?...With such offerings from your hands, will God accept you?...Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so you would not light useless fires on your altar! I am not pleased with you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will accept no offerings from your hands." Wow!
Imagine God saying, "Forget all your church meetings, all your Christian activities! They're useless. Close the church! Keep your offerings! You're wasting your time. I'm not accepting what you're giving." Man! Well, that's God's reaction when His children offer Him the leftovers of their lives. His people in Malachi's day said, "Giving God this perfect animal is such a waste. I can get good money for an animal like that. I'll just give the Lord this blind one or this crippled one-I don't need them. I can't do much with those." And God says, "You know, I'd rather have nothing than what you don't really need anyway-your leftovers."
You remember the day the religious leaders in Jerusalem were throwing their big offerings in the pot with great fanfare? Remember the only gift Jesus said impressed Him? The gift of a poor widow who quietly gave everything she had. It doesn't matter to Jesus how much you give-it seems to be how much you have left that matters to Him. One recent study showed that the giving of American Christians-the percentage of their income given to the work of God-had dropped by one-third in the past 30 years! The trend seems to be to spend more on ourselves and to give less to our Lord. I can't imagine He is any more pleased with us than He was with His children in Malachi's day.
God calls on His children to give the "first fruits" to Him. To a farmer, that meant real faith giving. Before he knew what kind of harvest he'd ultimately have, he brought to God right off the top. Now it's interesting to note that many Christian ministries say that one-fourth to one-third of their total income for the year comes in during December, especially as people are thinking about their income tax deductions.
Could it be that some of us are waiting until after the harvest to see what we can "afford" to give to the Lord-or our "last fruits?" See, it's the gift of faith that pleases God. A gift that involves little risk and little sacrifice is not a gift that means much to a God who sacrificed His one and only Son for us.
Our spiritual words and our activities might not be the best measure of our relationship with God. No, it's often the sacrificial giving of our finances that most accurately shows how much we really love Him. Not how much you give, but how much you have left...not leftovers. Because your Lord says, in Numbers 18:29, "You must present as the Lord's portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you."
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, or pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David probably wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).
As the apostle Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation is available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Malachi 2
Desecrating the Holiness of God
1-3 “And now this indictment, you priests! If you refuse to obediently listen, and if you refuse to honor me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, in worship, then I’ll put you under a curse. I’ll exchange all your blessings for curses. In fact, the curses are already at work because you’re not serious about honoring me. Yes, and the curse will extend to your children. I’m going to plaster your faces with rotting garbage, garbage thrown out from your feasts. That’s what you have to look forward to!
4-6 “Maybe that will wake you up. Maybe then you’ll realize that I’m indicting you in order to put new life into my covenant with the priests of Levi, the covenant of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. My covenant with Levi was to give life and peace. I kept my covenant with him, and he honored me. He stood in reverent awe before me. He taught the truth and did not lie. He walked with me in peace and uprightness. He kept many out of the ditch, kept them on the road.
7-9 “It’s the job of priests to teach the truth. People are supposed to look to them for guidance. The priest is the messenger of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. But you priests have abandoned the way of priests. Your teaching has messed up many lives. You have corrupted the covenant of priest Levi. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so. And so I am showing you up for who you are. Everyone will be disgusted with you and avoid you because you don’t live the way I told you to live, and you don’t teach my revelation truly and impartially.”
10 Don’t we all come from one Father? Aren’t we all created by the same God? So why can’t we get along? Why do we desecrate the covenant of our ancestors that binds us together?
11-12 Judah has cheated on God—a sickening violation of trust in Israel and Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the holiness of God by falling in love and running off with foreign women, women who worship alien gods. God’s curse on those who do this! Drive them out of house and home! They’re no longer fit to be part of the community no matter how many offerings they bring to God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
13-15 And here’s a second offense: You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don’t get what you want from God. Do you know why? Simple. Because God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you’ve broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife. God, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse.
16 “I hate divorce,” says the God of Israel. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.
17 You make God tired with all your talk.
“How do we tire him out?” you ask.
By saying, “God loves sinners and sin alike. God loves all.” And also by saying, “Judgment? God’s too nice to judge.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 15, 2017
Read: John 8:39–47
They were indignant. “Our father is Abraham!”
Jesus said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would have been doing the things Abraham did. And yet here you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth he got straight from God! Abraham never did that sort of thing. You persist in repeating the works of your father.”
They said, “We’re not bastards. We have a legitimate father: the one and only God.”
42-47 “If God were your father,” said Jesus, “you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn’t come on my own. He sent me. Why can’t you understand one word I say? Here’s why: You can’t handle it. You’re from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn’t stand the truth because there wasn’t a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies. I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me. Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone on God’s side listens to God’s words. This is why you’re not listening—because you’re not on God’s side.”
INSIGHT
The Israelites of Jesus’s day had many Old Testament heroes, but three soared above the rest. David was the great king who established the city of Jerusalem and stabilized the kingdom. Moses was the leader who was given the law of God. He was God’s instrument of deliverance and led the Israelites to the threshold of the land of promise. But their most ancient hero was Abraham—the father of the faithful and the man whose faith was counted to him as righteousness. Jesus, however, surpasses this great heritage, for through Him we become children of God Himself.
Bill Crowder
What’s Your Father’s Name?
By Keila Ochoa
To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
When I went to buy a cell phone in the Middle East, I was asked the typical questions: name, nationality, address. But then as the clerk was filling out the form, he asked, “What’s your father’s name?” That question surprised me, and I wondered why it was important. Knowing my father’s name would not be important in my culture, but here it was necessary in order to establish my identity. In some cultures, ancestry is important.
The Israelites believed in the importance of ancestry too. They were proud of their patriarch Abraham, and they thought being part of Abraham's clan made them God's children. Their human ancestry was connected, in their opinion, to their spiritual family.
God is our Eternal Father.
Hundreds of years later when Jesus was talking with the Jews, He pointed out that this was not so. They could say Abraham was their earthly ancestor, but if they didn’t love Him—the One sent by the Father—they were not part of God’s family.
The same applies today. We don't choose our human family, but we can decide the spiritual family we belong to. If we believe in Jesus’s name, God gives us the right to become His children (John 1:12).
Who is your spiritual Father? Have you decided to follow Jesus? Let this be the day you trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and become part of God’s family.
Dear Lord, You are my heavenly and eternal Father. Thank You for Jesus, my Savior.
God is our Eternal Father.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 15, 2017
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame… —2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you “renounced the hidden things of shame” in your life— the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind— renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
“…not walking in craftiness…” (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way— the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way— the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others— God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest— your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 15, 2017
Repulsive Leftovers - #8005
If you've ever had a teenage son, you'll know this answer. When a teenage boy gets home from school, what's the first question he asks? Right! "What's for dinner?" Now one of our boys' un-favorite answers to that question was that dreaded "L" word-leftovers! By the way, that was especially scary after Thanksgiving...turkey would never end. Now leftovers aren't too many people's first choice for a meal. Right? And the longer they've been left over, the more unsatisfying that choice becomes. I know I've never been to a restaurant who offered an item called "leftovers". Let's face it. Leftovers, they're second best-at best.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Repulsive Leftovers."
No one gets very excited about leftovers-including God. But when God asks many of us, "What are you giving Me?" our honest answer would be, "Leftovers." In our word for today from the Word of God, God is telling His ancient people that they're showing contempt for Him, and these are people who are doing a lot of these religious things! He says they're disrespecting Him by bringing Him defiled offerings. He explains it in Malachi 1:8. Remember, God called for the sacrifice of only an unblemished, perfect animal.
Here's what He says: "When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?...With such offerings from your hands, will God accept you?...Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so you would not light useless fires on your altar! I am not pleased with you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will accept no offerings from your hands." Wow!
Imagine God saying, "Forget all your church meetings, all your Christian activities! They're useless. Close the church! Keep your offerings! You're wasting your time. I'm not accepting what you're giving." Man! Well, that's God's reaction when His children offer Him the leftovers of their lives. His people in Malachi's day said, "Giving God this perfect animal is such a waste. I can get good money for an animal like that. I'll just give the Lord this blind one or this crippled one-I don't need them. I can't do much with those." And God says, "You know, I'd rather have nothing than what you don't really need anyway-your leftovers."
You remember the day the religious leaders in Jerusalem were throwing their big offerings in the pot with great fanfare? Remember the only gift Jesus said impressed Him? The gift of a poor widow who quietly gave everything she had. It doesn't matter to Jesus how much you give-it seems to be how much you have left that matters to Him. One recent study showed that the giving of American Christians-the percentage of their income given to the work of God-had dropped by one-third in the past 30 years! The trend seems to be to spend more on ourselves and to give less to our Lord. I can't imagine He is any more pleased with us than He was with His children in Malachi's day.
God calls on His children to give the "first fruits" to Him. To a farmer, that meant real faith giving. Before he knew what kind of harvest he'd ultimately have, he brought to God right off the top. Now it's interesting to note that many Christian ministries say that one-fourth to one-third of their total income for the year comes in during December, especially as people are thinking about their income tax deductions.
Could it be that some of us are waiting until after the harvest to see what we can "afford" to give to the Lord-or our "last fruits?" See, it's the gift of faith that pleases God. A gift that involves little risk and little sacrifice is not a gift that means much to a God who sacrificed His one and only Son for us.
Our spiritual words and our activities might not be the best measure of our relationship with God. No, it's often the sacrificial giving of our finances that most accurately shows how much we really love Him. Not how much you give, but how much you have left...not leftovers. Because your Lord says, in Numbers 18:29, "You must present as the Lord's portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you."
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Malachi 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE GRACE OF CHRIST
Guilt sucks the life out of our souls. Grace restores it. No one had more reason to feel the burden of guilt than did the apostle Paul. He had orchestrated the deaths of Christians—an ancient version of a terrorist. Yet, Paul gave his guilt to Jesus, period. He surrendered it to Jesus! As a result he could write, “I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).
What would the apostle say to the guilt-ridden? Simply this: Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy. Trust in his ability to forgive. Cast yourself upon the grace of Christ and Christ alone!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Malachi 1
No More of This So-Called Worship!
A Message. God’s Word to Israel through Malachi:
2-3 God said, “I love you.”
You replied, “Really? How have you loved us?”
“Look at history” (this is God’s answer). “Look at how differently I’ve treated you, Jacob, from Esau: I loved Jacob and hated Esau. I reduced pretentious Esau to a molehill, turned his whole country into a ghost town.”
4 When Edom (Esau) said, “We’ve been knocked down, but we’ll get up and start over, good as new,” God-of-the-Angel-Armies said, “Just try it and see how far you get. When I knock you down, you stay down. People will take one look at you and say, ‘Land of Evil!’ and ‘the God-cursed tribe!’
5 “Yes, take a good look. Then you’ll see how faithfully I’ve loved you and you’ll want even more, saying, ‘May God be even greater, beyond the borders of Israel!’
6 “Isn’t it true that a son honors his father and a worker his master? So if I’m your Father, where’s the honor? If I’m your Master, where’s the respect?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling you on the carpet: “You priests despise me!
“You say, ‘Not so! How do we despise you?’
“By your shoddy, sloppy, defiling worship.
“You ask, ‘What do you mean, “defiling”? What’s defiling about it?’
7-8 “When you say, ‘The altar of God is not important anymore; worship of God is no longer a priority,’ that’s defiling. And when you offer worthless animals for sacrifices in worship, animals that you’re trying to get rid of—blind and sick and crippled animals—isn’t that defiling? Try a trick like that with your banker or your senator—how far do you think it will get you?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.
9 “Get on your knees and pray that I will be gracious to you. You priests have gotten everyone in trouble. With this kind of conduct, do you think I’ll pay attention to you?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.
10 “Why doesn’t one of you just shut the Temple doors and lock them? Then none of you can get in and play at religion with this silly, empty-headed worship. I am not pleased. The God-of-the-Angel-Armies is not pleased. And I don’t want any more of this so-called worship!
Offering God Something Hand-Me-Down, Broken, or Useless
11 “I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They’re saying it everywhere: ‘God is greater, this God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’
12-13 “All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!
14 “A curse on the person who makes a big show of doing something great for me—an expensive sacrifice, say—and then at the last minute brings in something puny and worthless! I’m a great king, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, honored far and wide, and I’ll not put up with it!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Read: Judges 2:11–23
The People of Israel did evil in God’s sight: they served Baal-gods; they deserted God, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshiped them! And oh, how they angered God as they worshiped god Baal and goddess Astarte! God’s anger was hot against Israel: He handed them off to plunderers who stripped them; he sold them cheap to enemies on all sides. They were helpless before their enemies. Every time they walked out the door God was with them—but for evil, just as God had said, just as he had sworn he would do. They were in a bad way.
16-17 But then God raised up judges who saved them from their plunderers. But they wouldn’t listen to their judges; they prostituted themselves to other gods—worshiped them! They lost no time leaving the road walked by their parents, the road of obedience to God’s commands. They refused to have anything to do with it.
18-19 When God was setting up judges for them, he would be right there with the judge: He would save them from their enemies’ oppression as long as the judge was alive, for God was moved to compassion when he heard their groaning because of those who afflicted and beat them. But when the judge died, the people went right back to their old ways—but even worse than their parents!—running after other gods, serving and worshiping them. Stubborn as mules, they didn’t drop a single evil practice.
20-22 And God’s anger blazed against Israel. He said, “Because these people have thrown out my covenant that I commanded their parents and haven’t listened to me, I’m not driving out one more person from the nations that Joshua left behind when he died. I’ll use them to test Israel and see whether they stay on God’s road and walk down it as their parents did.”
23 That’s why God let those nations remain. He didn’t drive them out or let Joshua get rid of them.
We Have a King!
By Xochitl Dixon
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. Judges 21:25
After attacking my husband with hurtful words when a situation didn’t go my way, I snubbed the Holy Spirit’s authority as He reminded me of Bible verses that revealed my sinful attitudes. Was nursing my stubborn pride worth the collateral damage in my marriage or being disobedient to God? Absolutely not. But by the time I asked for forgiveness from the Lord and my spouse, I’d left a wake of wounds behind me—the result of ignoring wise counsel and living as if I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself.
There was a time when the Israelites had a rebellious attitude. After the death of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land. Under his leadership, the Israelite’s served the Lord (Judg. 2:7). But after Joshua and the generation that outlived him died, the Israelites forgot God and what He’d done (v. 10). They rejected godly leadership and embraced sin (vv. 11–15).
Jesus, please help us remember You are our living King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Things improved when the Lord raised up judges (vv. 16–18), who served like kings. But when each judge died, the Israelites returned to defying God. Living as if they didn’t have anyone to answer to but themselves, they suffered devastating consequences (vv. 19–22). But that doesn’t have to be our reality. We can submit to the sovereign authority of the eternal Ruler we were made to follow—Jesus—because He is our living Judge and King of Kings.
Jesus, please help us remember You are our living King of Kings and Lord of Lords, almighty and worthy of our loving obedience and trust.
God gives us the power and the privilege to enjoy the rewards of doing things His way.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Arguments or Obedience
…the simplicity that is in Christ. —2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Is He going to help Himself to your life, or are you taken up with your conception of what you are going to do? God is responsible for our lives, and the one great keynote is reckless reliance upon Him. Approved Unto God, 10 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Lord of the Ring - #8004
My bride put the ring on my finger a long time ago. I've never had if off since she put it there. Then came my surgery a few weeks ago; my first surgery ever. My rotator cuff basically wasn't there, my doctor said, and there was no choice but shoulder surgery.
Right before the "festivities" began, the doctor said I'd have to take off my wedding ring. First, the size of my knuckles these days meant it would have to be cut off. Second, with my wife's Home-going to heaven just a year ago, that thought hit me pretty hard. But the risks of going into surgery with the ring on finally persuaded me that keeping it on was clearly unwise. So, after I was sedated, they cut off the wedding ring that I had never removed.
We were young when we got married, but we knew there would never be anyone else. Thus, the three little words engraved inside of Karen's ring and mine: "UNTIL JESUS COMES." But something happened in that operating room that stunned me and our whole family.
There was no way the doctor could see where he was cutting the ring of course. Our first look at the ring brought tears to our eyes. Not a letter of that cherished inscription was touched! My ring still says, as it has since our wedding day, UNTIL JESUS COMES. It was as if God was saying. "The love of a lifetime is untouched and intact." And though Karen is in heaven and I'm here, our love endures.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lord of the Ring."
It struck me that God was the unseen witness at our little wedding on the south side of Chicago years ago. As He is at every wedding. He heard us pledging our undying love to one another. He heard what I promised Karen that day. He heard what Karen promised me, as He hears all the vows of every husband and wife.
At the very end of the Bible's Old Testament, God says actually in our word for today from the Word of God in Malachi 2:14, He acts "as the witness between you and the wife of your youth."
The context is actually people wondering why their prayers are going unanswered, and why God seems to be unresponsive to all their religious observances that are designed to please Him. There's obviously a breakdown between them and God, and they're clueless as to what's wrong.
God's answer actually goes back to the promises they made on their wedding day! He says, "It is because you have broken faith with the wife of your youth, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant." (Malachi 2:14) It's as if God is saying, "You may have forgotten what you promised her (or what you promised him), but I haven't."
Years have passed. You've both changed a lot. There have been hurts, tension, harsh words, disappointed expectations, maybe betrayal, serious temptations. And those promises? Neglected? Violated? Forgotten?
The God before whom we will each stand one day is still expecting us to deliver on the selfless, sacrificial, nurturing, protecting love we promised at that altar. Something to consider on the days when your love is drifting, dying or about to give up.
God clearly heard every word I promised Karen. And He always tried to get my attention when I was forgetting my vows to her. Because, it turns out, He was hearing them as vows to Him, too.
So, I hold in my hand a ring that will always remind me that the covenant love of a husband and wife means a lot to God. And that His is the love that makes possible a love that never dies.
Guilt sucks the life out of our souls. Grace restores it. No one had more reason to feel the burden of guilt than did the apostle Paul. He had orchestrated the deaths of Christians—an ancient version of a terrorist. Yet, Paul gave his guilt to Jesus, period. He surrendered it to Jesus! As a result he could write, “I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).
What would the apostle say to the guilt-ridden? Simply this: Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy. Trust in his ability to forgive. Cast yourself upon the grace of Christ and Christ alone!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Malachi 1
No More of This So-Called Worship!
A Message. God’s Word to Israel through Malachi:
2-3 God said, “I love you.”
You replied, “Really? How have you loved us?”
“Look at history” (this is God’s answer). “Look at how differently I’ve treated you, Jacob, from Esau: I loved Jacob and hated Esau. I reduced pretentious Esau to a molehill, turned his whole country into a ghost town.”
4 When Edom (Esau) said, “We’ve been knocked down, but we’ll get up and start over, good as new,” God-of-the-Angel-Armies said, “Just try it and see how far you get. When I knock you down, you stay down. People will take one look at you and say, ‘Land of Evil!’ and ‘the God-cursed tribe!’
5 “Yes, take a good look. Then you’ll see how faithfully I’ve loved you and you’ll want even more, saying, ‘May God be even greater, beyond the borders of Israel!’
6 “Isn’t it true that a son honors his father and a worker his master? So if I’m your Father, where’s the honor? If I’m your Master, where’s the respect?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling you on the carpet: “You priests despise me!
“You say, ‘Not so! How do we despise you?’
“By your shoddy, sloppy, defiling worship.
“You ask, ‘What do you mean, “defiling”? What’s defiling about it?’
7-8 “When you say, ‘The altar of God is not important anymore; worship of God is no longer a priority,’ that’s defiling. And when you offer worthless animals for sacrifices in worship, animals that you’re trying to get rid of—blind and sick and crippled animals—isn’t that defiling? Try a trick like that with your banker or your senator—how far do you think it will get you?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.
9 “Get on your knees and pray that I will be gracious to you. You priests have gotten everyone in trouble. With this kind of conduct, do you think I’ll pay attention to you?” God-of-the-Angel-Armies asks you.
10 “Why doesn’t one of you just shut the Temple doors and lock them? Then none of you can get in and play at religion with this silly, empty-headed worship. I am not pleased. The God-of-the-Angel-Armies is not pleased. And I don’t want any more of this so-called worship!
Offering God Something Hand-Me-Down, Broken, or Useless
11 “I am honored all over the world. And there are people who know how to worship me all over the world, who honor me by bringing their best to me. They’re saying it everywhere: ‘God is greater, this God-of-the-Angel-Armies.’
12-13 “All except you. Instead of honoring me, you profane me. You profane me when you say, ‘Worship is not important, and what we bring to worship is of no account,’ and when you say, ‘I’m bored—this doesn’t do anything for me.’ You act so superior, sticking your noses in the air—act superior to me, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! And when you do offer something to me, it’s a hand-me-down, or broken, or useless. Do you think I’m going to accept it? This is God speaking to you!
14 “A curse on the person who makes a big show of doing something great for me—an expensive sacrifice, say—and then at the last minute brings in something puny and worthless! I’m a great king, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, honored far and wide, and I’ll not put up with it!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Read: Judges 2:11–23
The People of Israel did evil in God’s sight: they served Baal-gods; they deserted God, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshiped them! And oh, how they angered God as they worshiped god Baal and goddess Astarte! God’s anger was hot against Israel: He handed them off to plunderers who stripped them; he sold them cheap to enemies on all sides. They were helpless before their enemies. Every time they walked out the door God was with them—but for evil, just as God had said, just as he had sworn he would do. They were in a bad way.
16-17 But then God raised up judges who saved them from their plunderers. But they wouldn’t listen to their judges; they prostituted themselves to other gods—worshiped them! They lost no time leaving the road walked by their parents, the road of obedience to God’s commands. They refused to have anything to do with it.
18-19 When God was setting up judges for them, he would be right there with the judge: He would save them from their enemies’ oppression as long as the judge was alive, for God was moved to compassion when he heard their groaning because of those who afflicted and beat them. But when the judge died, the people went right back to their old ways—but even worse than their parents!—running after other gods, serving and worshiping them. Stubborn as mules, they didn’t drop a single evil practice.
20-22 And God’s anger blazed against Israel. He said, “Because these people have thrown out my covenant that I commanded their parents and haven’t listened to me, I’m not driving out one more person from the nations that Joshua left behind when he died. I’ll use them to test Israel and see whether they stay on God’s road and walk down it as their parents did.”
23 That’s why God let those nations remain. He didn’t drive them out or let Joshua get rid of them.
We Have a King!
By Xochitl Dixon
In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. Judges 21:25
After attacking my husband with hurtful words when a situation didn’t go my way, I snubbed the Holy Spirit’s authority as He reminded me of Bible verses that revealed my sinful attitudes. Was nursing my stubborn pride worth the collateral damage in my marriage or being disobedient to God? Absolutely not. But by the time I asked for forgiveness from the Lord and my spouse, I’d left a wake of wounds behind me—the result of ignoring wise counsel and living as if I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself.
There was a time when the Israelites had a rebellious attitude. After the death of Moses, Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land. Under his leadership, the Israelite’s served the Lord (Judg. 2:7). But after Joshua and the generation that outlived him died, the Israelites forgot God and what He’d done (v. 10). They rejected godly leadership and embraced sin (vv. 11–15).
Jesus, please help us remember You are our living King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Things improved when the Lord raised up judges (vv. 16–18), who served like kings. But when each judge died, the Israelites returned to defying God. Living as if they didn’t have anyone to answer to but themselves, they suffered devastating consequences (vv. 19–22). But that doesn’t have to be our reality. We can submit to the sovereign authority of the eternal Ruler we were made to follow—Jesus—because He is our living Judge and King of Kings.
Jesus, please help us remember You are our living King of Kings and Lord of Lords, almighty and worthy of our loving obedience and trust.
God gives us the power and the privilege to enjoy the rewards of doing things His way.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Arguments or Obedience
…the simplicity that is in Christ. —2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Is He going to help Himself to your life, or are you taken up with your conception of what you are going to do? God is responsible for our lives, and the one great keynote is reckless reliance upon Him. Approved Unto God, 10 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Lord of the Ring - #8004
My bride put the ring on my finger a long time ago. I've never had if off since she put it there. Then came my surgery a few weeks ago; my first surgery ever. My rotator cuff basically wasn't there, my doctor said, and there was no choice but shoulder surgery.
Right before the "festivities" began, the doctor said I'd have to take off my wedding ring. First, the size of my knuckles these days meant it would have to be cut off. Second, with my wife's Home-going to heaven just a year ago, that thought hit me pretty hard. But the risks of going into surgery with the ring on finally persuaded me that keeping it on was clearly unwise. So, after I was sedated, they cut off the wedding ring that I had never removed.
We were young when we got married, but we knew there would never be anyone else. Thus, the three little words engraved inside of Karen's ring and mine: "UNTIL JESUS COMES." But something happened in that operating room that stunned me and our whole family.
There was no way the doctor could see where he was cutting the ring of course. Our first look at the ring brought tears to our eyes. Not a letter of that cherished inscription was touched! My ring still says, as it has since our wedding day, UNTIL JESUS COMES. It was as if God was saying. "The love of a lifetime is untouched and intact." And though Karen is in heaven and I'm here, our love endures.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lord of the Ring."
It struck me that God was the unseen witness at our little wedding on the south side of Chicago years ago. As He is at every wedding. He heard us pledging our undying love to one another. He heard what I promised Karen that day. He heard what Karen promised me, as He hears all the vows of every husband and wife.
At the very end of the Bible's Old Testament, God says actually in our word for today from the Word of God in Malachi 2:14, He acts "as the witness between you and the wife of your youth."
The context is actually people wondering why their prayers are going unanswered, and why God seems to be unresponsive to all their religious observances that are designed to please Him. There's obviously a breakdown between them and God, and they're clueless as to what's wrong.
God's answer actually goes back to the promises they made on their wedding day! He says, "It is because you have broken faith with the wife of your youth, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant." (Malachi 2:14) It's as if God is saying, "You may have forgotten what you promised her (or what you promised him), but I haven't."
Years have passed. You've both changed a lot. There have been hurts, tension, harsh words, disappointed expectations, maybe betrayal, serious temptations. And those promises? Neglected? Violated? Forgotten?
The God before whom we will each stand one day is still expecting us to deliver on the selfless, sacrificial, nurturing, protecting love we promised at that altar. Something to consider on the days when your love is drifting, dying or about to give up.
God clearly heard every word I promised Karen. And He always tried to get my attention when I was forgetting my vows to her. Because, it turns out, He was hearing them as vows to Him, too.
So, I hold in my hand a ring that will always remind me that the covenant love of a husband and wife means a lot to God. And that His is the love that makes possible a love that never dies.
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