Max Lucado Daily: WELL DONE, GOOD & FAITHFUL SERVANT
God gives gifts, not miserly, but abundantly! And he doesn’t give gifts randomly, but carefully, “to each according to each one’s unique ability” (Matthew 25:15). Remember, no one else has your talents. No one. God elevates you from common-hood by matching your unique abilities to custom-made assignments. “Well done good and faithful servant,” Jesus will say to some (Matthew 25:23).
Maybe your dad never praised you or your teachers always criticized you, but God will applaud you! And to have him call you good… well, when he does, it counts. Only he can make bad sinners good. And only he can make the frail, faithful. “Well done, good and faithful.” The point? Use your uniqueness to take great risks for God! The only mistake is not to risk making one!
Jonah 4
Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!
3 “So, God, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!”
4 God said, “What do you have to be angry about?”
5 But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
6 God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.
7-8 But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: “I’m better off dead!”
9 Then God said to Jonah, “What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?”
Jonah said, “Plenty of right. It’s made me angry enough to die!”
10-11 God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 111
Praise the Lord.[b]
I will extol the Lord with all my heart
in the council of the upright and in the assembly.
2 Great are the works of the Lord;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.
3 Glorious and majestic are his deeds,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has caused his wonders to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he remembers his covenant forever.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
giving them the lands of other nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
8 They are established for ever and ever,
enacted in faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He provided redemption for his people;
he ordained his covenant forever—
holy and awesome is his name.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
To him belongs eternal praise.
Footnotes:
Psalm 111:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, the lines of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Psalm 111:1 Hebrew Hallelu Yah
Insight
Psalm 111 is one of seven Old Testament psalms known as “acrostic psalms” (other acrostics are 25, 34, 37, 112, 119, 145). They’re designated as such because of their alphabetical ordering. The Hebrew alphabet has twenty-two letters (from aleph to taw); an acrostic psalm has 22 lines or verses, each beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalms 111 and 112 are companion psalms. In the Hebrew language, both have twenty-two lines in ten verses, apart from the call to worship, “Praise the Lord.”
With a marvelous touch of creativity, the writer boasts about the “works” of the Almighty (111:2, 6–7). Other words and expressions used to speak of the activity of God are “deeds” (v. 3) and “wonders” (v. 4). His character is likewise celebrated: “his righteousness endures forever”; He’s “gracious and compassionate”; and “he remembers his covenant forever” (vv. 3–5).
More Than Hacks
He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever—holy and awesome is his name. Psalm 111:9
I recently found a “hack” (a clever solution to a tricky problem) when one of my grandchildren warmed her toy rabbit on our fireplace glass. The resulting globs of fake bunny fur weren’t pretty, but a fireplace expert provided a great hack—a tip for how to make the glass look like new. It worked, and now we no longer allow stuffed animals near the fireplace!
I bring up hacks because sometimes we can view Scripture as a collection of hacks—tips to make life easier. While it’s true that the Bible has much to say about how to live a Christ-honoring new life, that’s not the only purpose of the Book. What Scripture provides for us is a solution for mankind’s greatest need: rescue from sin and eternal separation from God.
From the promise of salvation in Genesis 3:15 all the way to the true hope of a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21:1–2), the Bible explains that God has an eternal plan for rescuing us from our sin and allowing us to enjoy fellowship with Him. In every story and every suggestion for how to live, the Bible is pointing us to Jesus—the only One who can solve our biggest problem.
When we open God’s Book, may we remember that we’re looking for Jesus, the rescue He offers, and how to live as His children. He’s provided the greatest solution of all! By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
How has Jesus and His promise to rescue those who believe in Him touched your heart and life? Why is it vital to see that the Bible consistently points to Christ?
Father, thank You for the salvation You provided through Jesus. Help me to honor You by keeping focused on our Savior and His amazing love for me.
To learn more about who Jesus is, visit christianuniversity.org/NT111.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 22, 2019
“I Indeed. . . But He”
I indeed baptize you with water…but He…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. —Matthew 3:11
Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, “I indeed…but He…”? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more— but He begins right there— He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.
Repentance does not cause a sense of sin— it causes a sense of inexpressible unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am absolutely helpless, and I know that through and through I am not worthy even to carry His sandals. Have I repented like that, or do I have a lingering thought of possibly trying to defend my actions? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not at the point of complete repentance.
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” John is not speaking here of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience, but as a work performed by Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you….” The only experience that those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are ever conscious of is the experience of sensing their absolute unworthiness.
“I indeed” was this in the past, “but He” came and something miraculous happened. Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 22, 2019
What Cold Does to Hot - #8509
Well, I've kind of succumbed and, you know, used the electric razor these days. But for a long time I shaved the old fashioned way - hot water, shaving cream, and a razor. I thought maybe that made me a "real man." Well, one day I was shaving in a hotel and I realized that I had run the hot water too hot. It's one thing to soften your beard; it's another thing to cook your face. So I ran just a little cold water into the sink, and that was amazing! Suddenly, the water was not hot enough! (A little science experiment here.) See, I underestimated how quickly the cold can cool off the hot.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What Cold Does to Hot."
This tendency for what's cold to cool off what's hot is more than just a physical phenomenon; it's the reason for many a spiritual disaster. Someone who was really hot spiritually, cooled off because they got too close to someone who was spiritually cold, or at least cooler than they were.
Now, that's one reason God wrote us what He did in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 6, beginning in verse 14. God says, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers." Now, he's referring to the way farmers of that day put a wooden yoke over two cows or two oxen to get them working together. The Lord goes on to ask, "For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? ... What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God."
"God has said, 'I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore, come out from them and be separate,' says the Lord." Okay, now, is God saying that those who belong to Jesus should have no contact with those who don't? No, that can't be. Because He said we're His salt in the world and you've got to get out of the salt shaker for that. We can't be His light in the darkness if we have no contact with the darkness.
What God is warning against here - actually commanding against - is any kind of bonded relationship with someone who is not in His re-born family. That certainly would refer to a believer marrying an unbeliever. It can also be any serious relationship romantically . It could be a business partnership, even an intimate friendship. Those are danger zones for a child of God. In your core values, you're just heading two different directions!
And don't underestimate how quickly cold can cool off hot. I've seen that happen spiritually so many times over the years. A Christian guy or girl does some "evangelistic dating" - they go out with an unbeliever, hoping they can bring that person closer to Christ. For every one time that has happened, there must be ten times at least that the Christian has ended up farther from Christ. And how many women who are married to a man who doesn't know Christ would testify to the lifelong turmoil of being torn between two loves - their Savior and their husband?
But it can work the same way in business or with a friend you spend a lot of time with. The tendency is going to be for you to start cooling off, and compromising, and cutting corners spiritually to get along with that person. Honestly, can you see that happening in your life somewhere now? The deeper in you get, the harder it's going to be to get out. So now, this would be the least painful time you'll ever have to do the right thing; the thing that will guard your most important relationship with your Jesus, the person who loved you enough to die for you - the person who is your eternal future - Jesus.
If you used to be a lot warmer in your love for Jesus, could it be you've just gotten too close to what's cold?
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Jonah 3 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LET YOUR LIFE ILLUSTRATE CHRIST
Tucked away in the cedar chest of my memory is a Sunday school teacher in a small West Texas church. She gave each of us a can of crayons and a sketch of Jesus torn from a coloring book. We didn’t illustrate pictures of ourselves, we colored the Son of God. We used what she gave us. No blue crayon for the sky? Make it purple. If Jesus’ hair is red, the teacher won’t mind. She taught us to paint Jesus with our own colors.
God made you to do likewise. He made you unique so you could illustrate Christ. Make a big deal out of him. Don’t waste years embellishing your own image. Who needs to see your face? Who doesn’t need to see God’s? Besides, God promises no applause for self-promoters. But great reward awaits God-promoters– “Good work! You did your job well.” (Matthew 25:23).
Jonah 3
Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3 This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.
Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.
4 Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”
5 The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.
6-9 When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”
10 God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:20–24
That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Insight
In view of what Jesus has done to save us (Ephesians 1–3), Paul urges the Ephesian believers to “live a life worthy of the calling [they] have received” (4:1). Paul insisted that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles do” (v. 17), living a life of sensuality and moral impurity (v. 19). Writing metaphorically, Paul speaks of the sinful nature as something old that must be replaced by the new (vv. 22–24). Paul reminds us that “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 nlt). In Colossians 3, Paul instructs us to “put to death . . . whatever belongs to [our] earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed . . . . [And] clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (vv. 5, 12). One Bible teacher says we’re to put off our grave clothes and put on grace clothes.
Life Changes
Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24
Stephen grew up in a rough part of East London and fell into crime by the age of ten. He said, “If everyone’s selling drugs and doing robberies and fraud, then you’re going to get involved. It’s just a way of life.” But when he was twenty, he had a dream that changed him: “I heard God saying, Stephen, you’re going to prison for murder.” This vivid dream served as a warning, and he turned to God and received Jesus as his Savior—and the Holy Spirit transformed his life.
Stephen set up an organization that teaches inner-city kids discipline, morality, and respect through sports. He credits God with the success he has seen as he prays with and trains the kids. “Rebuilding misguided dreams,” he says.
In pursuing God and leaving behind our past, we—like Stephen—follow Paul’s charge to the Ephesians to embrace a new way of life. Although our old self is “corrupted by its deceitful desires,” we can daily seek to “put on the new self” that’s created to be like God (Ephesians 4:22, 24). All believers embrace this continual process as we ask God through His Holy Spirit to make us more like Him.
Stephen said, “Faith was a crucial foundation for me changing my life around.” How has this been true for you? By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
When you look back over your life, what comes to mind as key moments that prompted change? What long-lasting change resulted?
Jesus, You’re alive and working in the world and in my life. Help me become more like You day by day as I leave the old self behind.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit… —Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. “Blessed are the poor in spirit….” This literally means, “Blessed are the paupers.” Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person’s strength of will or the beauty of his character— things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, “Make a decision for Jesus Christ,” places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, “Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom.” I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness— I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Picking Up Momentum as You Near the Bottom - #8508
I know I really need to exercise. My blood and my pulse - they don't really get going very fast as I sit many days doing my work. You know, like what I'm doing right now sitting at a microphone. I think back on my favorite form of exercise of my childhood. I used to chug around on my bicycle when I was a little kid. And when I was little, it was for fun or just basic getting around.
But then it became a discipline - I had to get on my bike. And it was fun occasionally, especially when I sped down a nice long hill like we had near our house. When I did that I experienced a law at work that was responsible for the excitement. It's pretty simple. The closer I got to the bottom of the hill, the more I picked up speed.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Picking Up Momentum As You Near the Bottom."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from Joshua 14. Here's a man I think you would say was nearing the bottom of life's hill. This is Caleb; he's 85 years old. Time to go to Florida, right? Well, listen to what he says. They are now in the Promised Land. He comes at the age of 85 to Joshua and says, "Now then, just as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive for 45 years since the time He said this to Moses while Israel moved about in the desert, so here I am today, 85 years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now, give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there, (Those were giants, by the way.) and their cities were large and fortified. But the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said."
Oh, by the way, that's exactly what 85-year-old Caleb did. As he nears the bottom of the hill of his life, he's picking up momentum like me on my bicycle. Now, most Americans are looking forward to this place on the horizon called retirement, and we talk about IRAs, and our condo, and our RV, and our favorite place to go and retire. Look, there's nothing wrong with retiring from your job, that's fine.
But I don't understand how you can retire from God's work. How can we retire from ministry? How can we retire from making a difference? How do you retire from Kingdom leadership, from reaching a lost world, from spiritual challenge? How do you retire from saying, "God, give me my mountain. Until the day I come to see You, I'm going to go after mountains for You." Sure, we may have physical limitations, but there's always a difference you can make for Him. I think Caleb gets not only the Senior Citizen of the Year award; he gets the Senior Citizen of the Centuries award. "Give me my mountain, Lord!"
Somehow we've allowed our potential Calebs to basically retire from the war, except to cut the church lawn, or write some checks, or serve on a committee. But these are the people who may know the most, who've got the most wisdom, who've walked with the Lord the longest. Older believers are sometimes almost programmed to fossilize at a time when they should energize. Yeah, as I said, there could be physical limitations, but is there any such thing as retiring from active service; retiring from somehow making a difference for Christ?
The Chinese have an old proverb. They say, "To the foolish, old age is winter. To the wise, old age is harvest time." Listen, if you're an older believer or a veteran in the work of the church who feels like, "Well, I'll just let somebody else do it now" or you're somebody with physical limitations, don't just pull off the road as you get near the bottom of the hill. God may want to call you to a mission that will use your wisdom, your skills, your experience that it took a lifetime to acquire.
One lifetime, no matter how long it is, is not enough to serve Christ. We only get one opportunity, one life. Use every day to the max! Look for a mountain; look for some giants to fight! And let your definition of retire change. Yeah, you should retire - you should re-tire - get a new set of tires on and drive faster and farther than ever before.
You should be picking up momentum as you get closer to the bottom of the hill.
Tucked away in the cedar chest of my memory is a Sunday school teacher in a small West Texas church. She gave each of us a can of crayons and a sketch of Jesus torn from a coloring book. We didn’t illustrate pictures of ourselves, we colored the Son of God. We used what she gave us. No blue crayon for the sky? Make it purple. If Jesus’ hair is red, the teacher won’t mind. She taught us to paint Jesus with our own colors.
God made you to do likewise. He made you unique so you could illustrate Christ. Make a big deal out of him. Don’t waste years embellishing your own image. Who needs to see your face? Who doesn’t need to see God’s? Besides, God promises no applause for self-promoters. But great reward awaits God-promoters– “Good work! You did your job well.” (Matthew 25:23).
Jonah 3
Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3 This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God’s orders to the letter.
Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it.
4 Jonah entered the city, went one day’s walk and preached, “In forty days Nineveh will be smashed.”
5 The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers.
6-9 When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap, and sat down in the dirt. Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, authorized by him and his leaders: “Not one drop of water, not one bite of food for man, woman, or animal, including your herds and flocks! Dress them all, both people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways that stain their hands. Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!”
10 God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn’t do.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:20–24
That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Insight
In view of what Jesus has done to save us (Ephesians 1–3), Paul urges the Ephesian believers to “live a life worthy of the calling [they] have received” (4:1). Paul insisted that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles do” (v. 17), living a life of sensuality and moral impurity (v. 19). Writing metaphorically, Paul speaks of the sinful nature as something old that must be replaced by the new (vv. 22–24). Paul reminds us that “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 nlt). In Colossians 3, Paul instructs us to “put to death . . . whatever belongs to [our] earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed . . . . [And] clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (vv. 5, 12). One Bible teacher says we’re to put off our grave clothes and put on grace clothes.
Life Changes
Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Ephesians 4:24
Stephen grew up in a rough part of East London and fell into crime by the age of ten. He said, “If everyone’s selling drugs and doing robberies and fraud, then you’re going to get involved. It’s just a way of life.” But when he was twenty, he had a dream that changed him: “I heard God saying, Stephen, you’re going to prison for murder.” This vivid dream served as a warning, and he turned to God and received Jesus as his Savior—and the Holy Spirit transformed his life.
Stephen set up an organization that teaches inner-city kids discipline, morality, and respect through sports. He credits God with the success he has seen as he prays with and trains the kids. “Rebuilding misguided dreams,” he says.
In pursuing God and leaving behind our past, we—like Stephen—follow Paul’s charge to the Ephesians to embrace a new way of life. Although our old self is “corrupted by its deceitful desires,” we can daily seek to “put on the new self” that’s created to be like God (Ephesians 4:22, 24). All believers embrace this continual process as we ask God through His Holy Spirit to make us more like Him.
Stephen said, “Faith was a crucial foundation for me changing my life around.” How has this been true for you? By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
When you look back over your life, what comes to mind as key moments that prompted change? What long-lasting change resulted?
Jesus, You’re alive and working in the world and in my life. Help me become more like You day by day as I leave the old self behind.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
The Ministry of the Unnoticed
Blessed are the poor in spirit… —Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things that do not seem worthy of notice by our standards. “Blessed are the poor in spirit….” This literally means, “Blessed are the paupers.” Paupers are remarkably commonplace! The preaching of today tends to point out a person’s strength of will or the beauty of his character— things that are easily noticed. The statement we so often hear, “Make a decision for Jesus Christ,” places the emphasis on something our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him— something very different. At the foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is the genuine loveliness of those who are commonplace. I am truly blessed in my poverty. If I have no strength of will and a nature without worth or excellence, then Jesus says to me, “Blessed are you, because it is through your poverty that you can enter My kingdom.” I cannot enter His kingdom by virtue of my goodness— I can only enter it as an absolute pauper.
The true character of the loveliness that speaks for God is always unnoticed by the one possessing that quality. Conscious influence is prideful and unchristian. If I wonder if I am being of any use to God, I instantly lose the beauty and the freshness of the touch of the Lord. “He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). And if I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.
Who are the people who have influenced us most? Certainly not the ones who thought they did, but those who did not have even the slightest idea that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, godly influence is never conscious of itself. If we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Picking Up Momentum as You Near the Bottom - #8508
I know I really need to exercise. My blood and my pulse - they don't really get going very fast as I sit many days doing my work. You know, like what I'm doing right now sitting at a microphone. I think back on my favorite form of exercise of my childhood. I used to chug around on my bicycle when I was a little kid. And when I was little, it was for fun or just basic getting around.
But then it became a discipline - I had to get on my bike. And it was fun occasionally, especially when I sped down a nice long hill like we had near our house. When I did that I experienced a law at work that was responsible for the excitement. It's pretty simple. The closer I got to the bottom of the hill, the more I picked up speed.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Picking Up Momentum As You Near the Bottom."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from Joshua 14. Here's a man I think you would say was nearing the bottom of life's hill. This is Caleb; he's 85 years old. Time to go to Florida, right? Well, listen to what he says. They are now in the Promised Land. He comes at the age of 85 to Joshua and says, "Now then, just as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive for 45 years since the time He said this to Moses while Israel moved about in the desert, so here I am today, 85 years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now, give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there, (Those were giants, by the way.) and their cities were large and fortified. But the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said."
Oh, by the way, that's exactly what 85-year-old Caleb did. As he nears the bottom of the hill of his life, he's picking up momentum like me on my bicycle. Now, most Americans are looking forward to this place on the horizon called retirement, and we talk about IRAs, and our condo, and our RV, and our favorite place to go and retire. Look, there's nothing wrong with retiring from your job, that's fine.
But I don't understand how you can retire from God's work. How can we retire from ministry? How can we retire from making a difference? How do you retire from Kingdom leadership, from reaching a lost world, from spiritual challenge? How do you retire from saying, "God, give me my mountain. Until the day I come to see You, I'm going to go after mountains for You." Sure, we may have physical limitations, but there's always a difference you can make for Him. I think Caleb gets not only the Senior Citizen of the Year award; he gets the Senior Citizen of the Centuries award. "Give me my mountain, Lord!"
Somehow we've allowed our potential Calebs to basically retire from the war, except to cut the church lawn, or write some checks, or serve on a committee. But these are the people who may know the most, who've got the most wisdom, who've walked with the Lord the longest. Older believers are sometimes almost programmed to fossilize at a time when they should energize. Yeah, as I said, there could be physical limitations, but is there any such thing as retiring from active service; retiring from somehow making a difference for Christ?
The Chinese have an old proverb. They say, "To the foolish, old age is winter. To the wise, old age is harvest time." Listen, if you're an older believer or a veteran in the work of the church who feels like, "Well, I'll just let somebody else do it now" or you're somebody with physical limitations, don't just pull off the road as you get near the bottom of the hill. God may want to call you to a mission that will use your wisdom, your skills, your experience that it took a lifetime to acquire.
One lifetime, no matter how long it is, is not enough to serve Christ. We only get one opportunity, one life. Use every day to the max! Look for a mountain; look for some giants to fight! And let your definition of retire change. Yeah, you should retire - you should re-tire - get a new set of tires on and drive faster and farther than ever before.
You should be picking up momentum as you get closer to the bottom of the hill.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Jonah 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LET YOUR UNIQUENESS DEFINE YOUR PATH
For the love of more, you might lose your purpose! Just because someone gives you advice, a job, or a promotion, you don’t have to accept it. Let your uniqueness define your path of life. Isaiah prayed, “You, LORD, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3).
Before you change your job title, examine your perspective toward life. As the Japanese proverb says, “Even if you sleep in a thousand-mat room, you can only sleep on one mat.” Success is not defined by position or pay scale but by this– doing the most what you do the best. Parents, tell your children to do what they love to do so well that someone pays them to do it. “Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Jonah 2
Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish.
He prayed:
“In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.
He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’
You heard my cry.
You threw me into ocean’s depths,
into a watery grave,
With ocean waves, ocean breakers
crashing over me.
I said, ‘I’ve been thrown away,
thrown out, out of your sight.
I’ll never again lay eyes
on your Holy Temple.’
Ocean gripped me by the throat.
The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.
My head was all tangled in seaweed
at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.
I was as far down as a body can go,
and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
walk away from their only true love.
But I’m worshiping you, God,
calling out in thanksgiving!
And I’ll do what I promised I’d do!
Salvation belongs to God!”
10 Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 6:27–36
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Insight
Christ’s words here echo His revolutionary teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5–7, especially 5:38–48). Some Bible scholars say both accounts refer to the same event, but others point to key differences. For instance, Luke specifically says that Jesus “went down with them and stood on a level place” (6:17). Matthew says He “went up on a mountainside and sat down” (5:1). Matthew lists eight beatitudes (vv. 2–12); Luke provides only four and in a somewhat different order (6:20–23). Luke also records a different style, reporting that Jesus said, “Blessed are you” instead of Matthew’s “blessed are those.” Importantly, the substance of Christ’s message in both accounts is the same: God’s love goes far beyond any legal requirement of what’s just and fair. Jesus is teaching us to emulate that extreme love.
Touched by Grace
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Luke 6:27
In Leif Enger’s novel Peace Like a River, Jeremiah Land is a single father of three working as a janitor at a local school. He’s also a man of deep, sometimes miraculous, faith. Throughout the book, his faith is often tested.
Jeremiah’s school is run by Chester Holden, a mean-spirited superintendent with a skin condition. Despite Jeremiah’s excellent work ethic—mopping up a sewage spill without complaint, picking up broken bottles the superintendent smashed—Holden wants him gone. One day, in front of all the students, he accuses Jeremiah of drunkenness and fires him. It’s a humiliating scene.
How does Jeremiah respond? He could threaten legal action for unfair dismissal or make accusations of his own. He could slink away, accepting the injustice. Think for a moment what you might do.
“Love your enemies,” Jesus says, “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27–28). These challenging words aren’t meant to excuse evil or stop justice from being pursued. Instead, they call us to imitate God (v. 36) by asking a profound question: How can I help my enemy become all God wants him or her to be?
Jeremiah looks at Holden for a moment, then reaches up and touches his face. Holden steps back defensively, then feels his chin and cheeks in wonder. His scarred skin has been healed.
An enemy touched by grace. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
What would your first reaction be in Jeremiah’s situation? How can you help a difficult person move closer to God’s purposes for them?
God, when faced with unfairness, injustice, or abuse, show me how to help my enemy move closer to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Christ-Awareness
…and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, “Come to Me…and I will give you rest,” that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Changing Your Direction - #8507
I've flown into the Anchorage, Alaska airport before, but I've never driven around that airport before. I was returning my rental car, which had to go to one terminal, and I had to race to make my plane at the other terminal. It was still dark, which didn't help in reading the signs at an unfamiliar airport, and somebody else must have my sense of direction. I thought I was heading for the rental car return until suddenly it looked like I was heading out into nothing that looked like an airport at all. As soon as I realized I was going the wrong direction, I knew what I had to do. I turned around as fast as I could and I drove very quickly in the right direction. And hello, whew! I made it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Changing Your Direction."
The only way I was going to get where I wanted to be was to totally change my direction, because I was lost. That might be the only way you'll get to where you want to be. God has a word for this spiritual 180-degree turn. It's called "repentance" - a word Jesus used a lot, the apostles used a lot, a word we don't hear too often in contemporary Christianity. It's the missing ingredient that's costing us so much of God's power and do much of God's blessing.
A picture of repentance might help us understand what it looks like, which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 19:7. Zacchaeus, the crooked tax collector of Jericho, has stolen a lot of money from a lot of people in his town. Much to the villagers' surprise, it is Zacchaeus' house Jesus chooses to go to for lunch.
The Bible says, "All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.' But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house.'"
Zacchaeus really repented. See, repenting is much more than just feeling bad about some sin and asking for forgiveness. It's a total turn in the other direction! Notice Zacchaeus committed himself to restore whatever his sin had damaged, to make right what he had done wrong. Repentance means setting your life up to change! Like that morning I had at the airport, I had to realize I was going the wrong direction, totally stop going the wrong direction, and aggressively start going the right direction. That's what it took for Zacchaeus to make a new beginning. That's what it will take for you.
God has so much He wants to give you, but He can't - not while you're still hanging onto that sinful attitude, that sinful action, that sinful relationship. The renewing begins when you first renounce what you've been doing, including the burning of all your bridges to that sin. Then you need to do a Zacchaeus and announce the changes you intend to make, especially to the people who are still expecting you to be the same old you. You need to go on record that things are going to change from now on.
I'm going to guess that you might be sensing God's Holy Spirit right now saying to you in your heart, "You know the wrong way you've been going." Well, if you sense that, don't drive another mile in the wrong direction. It's only taking you farther from where you really need to be, where I think you really want to be, and where you were made to be.
Stop, turn around, and drive full speed in the direction of all the power and all the blessings that Almighty God wants to give you.
For the love of more, you might lose your purpose! Just because someone gives you advice, a job, or a promotion, you don’t have to accept it. Let your uniqueness define your path of life. Isaiah prayed, “You, LORD, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3).
Before you change your job title, examine your perspective toward life. As the Japanese proverb says, “Even if you sleep in a thousand-mat room, you can only sleep on one mat.” Success is not defined by position or pay scale but by this– doing the most what you do the best. Parents, tell your children to do what they love to do so well that someone pays them to do it. “Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have” (Hebrews 13:5).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Jonah 2
Then Jonah prayed to his God from the belly of the fish.
He prayed:
“In trouble, deep trouble, I prayed to God.
He answered me.
From the belly of the grave I cried, ‘Help!’
You heard my cry.
You threw me into ocean’s depths,
into a watery grave,
With ocean waves, ocean breakers
crashing over me.
I said, ‘I’ve been thrown away,
thrown out, out of your sight.
I’ll never again lay eyes
on your Holy Temple.’
Ocean gripped me by the throat.
The ancient Abyss grabbed me and held tight.
My head was all tangled in seaweed
at the bottom of the sea where the mountains take root.
I was as far down as a body can go,
and the gates were slamming shut behind me forever—
Yet you pulled me up from that grave alive,
O God, my God!
When my life was slipping away,
I remembered God,
And my prayer got through to you,
made it all the way to your Holy Temple.
Those who worship hollow gods, god-frauds,
walk away from their only true love.
But I’m worshiping you, God,
calling out in thanksgiving!
And I’ll do what I promised I’d do!
Salvation belongs to God!”
10 Then God spoke to the fish, and it vomited up Jonah on the seashore.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 6:27–36
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Insight
Christ’s words here echo His revolutionary teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5–7, especially 5:38–48). Some Bible scholars say both accounts refer to the same event, but others point to key differences. For instance, Luke specifically says that Jesus “went down with them and stood on a level place” (6:17). Matthew says He “went up on a mountainside and sat down” (5:1). Matthew lists eight beatitudes (vv. 2–12); Luke provides only four and in a somewhat different order (6:20–23). Luke also records a different style, reporting that Jesus said, “Blessed are you” instead of Matthew’s “blessed are those.” Importantly, the substance of Christ’s message in both accounts is the same: God’s love goes far beyond any legal requirement of what’s just and fair. Jesus is teaching us to emulate that extreme love.
Touched by Grace
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Luke 6:27
In Leif Enger’s novel Peace Like a River, Jeremiah Land is a single father of three working as a janitor at a local school. He’s also a man of deep, sometimes miraculous, faith. Throughout the book, his faith is often tested.
Jeremiah’s school is run by Chester Holden, a mean-spirited superintendent with a skin condition. Despite Jeremiah’s excellent work ethic—mopping up a sewage spill without complaint, picking up broken bottles the superintendent smashed—Holden wants him gone. One day, in front of all the students, he accuses Jeremiah of drunkenness and fires him. It’s a humiliating scene.
How does Jeremiah respond? He could threaten legal action for unfair dismissal or make accusations of his own. He could slink away, accepting the injustice. Think for a moment what you might do.
“Love your enemies,” Jesus says, “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27–28). These challenging words aren’t meant to excuse evil or stop justice from being pursued. Instead, they call us to imitate God (v. 36) by asking a profound question: How can I help my enemy become all God wants him or her to be?
Jeremiah looks at Holden for a moment, then reaches up and touches his face. Holden steps back defensively, then feels his chin and cheeks in wonder. His scarred skin has been healed.
An enemy touched by grace. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
What would your first reaction be in Jeremiah’s situation? How can you help a difficult person move closer to God’s purposes for them?
God, when faced with unfairness, injustice, or abuse, show me how to help my enemy move closer to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Christ-Awareness
…and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, “Come to Me…and I will give you rest,” that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Changing Your Direction - #8507
I've flown into the Anchorage, Alaska airport before, but I've never driven around that airport before. I was returning my rental car, which had to go to one terminal, and I had to race to make my plane at the other terminal. It was still dark, which didn't help in reading the signs at an unfamiliar airport, and somebody else must have my sense of direction. I thought I was heading for the rental car return until suddenly it looked like I was heading out into nothing that looked like an airport at all. As soon as I realized I was going the wrong direction, I knew what I had to do. I turned around as fast as I could and I drove very quickly in the right direction. And hello, whew! I made it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Changing Your Direction."
The only way I was going to get where I wanted to be was to totally change my direction, because I was lost. That might be the only way you'll get to where you want to be. God has a word for this spiritual 180-degree turn. It's called "repentance" - a word Jesus used a lot, the apostles used a lot, a word we don't hear too often in contemporary Christianity. It's the missing ingredient that's costing us so much of God's power and do much of God's blessing.
A picture of repentance might help us understand what it looks like, which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 19:7. Zacchaeus, the crooked tax collector of Jericho, has stolen a lot of money from a lot of people in his town. Much to the villagers' surprise, it is Zacchaeus' house Jesus chooses to go to for lunch.
The Bible says, "All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.' But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house.'"
Zacchaeus really repented. See, repenting is much more than just feeling bad about some sin and asking for forgiveness. It's a total turn in the other direction! Notice Zacchaeus committed himself to restore whatever his sin had damaged, to make right what he had done wrong. Repentance means setting your life up to change! Like that morning I had at the airport, I had to realize I was going the wrong direction, totally stop going the wrong direction, and aggressively start going the right direction. That's what it took for Zacchaeus to make a new beginning. That's what it will take for you.
God has so much He wants to give you, but He can't - not while you're still hanging onto that sinful attitude, that sinful action, that sinful relationship. The renewing begins when you first renounce what you've been doing, including the burning of all your bridges to that sin. Then you need to do a Zacchaeus and announce the changes you intend to make, especially to the people who are still expecting you to be the same old you. You need to go on record that things are going to change from now on.
I'm going to guess that you might be sensing God's Holy Spirit right now saying to you in your heart, "You know the wrong way you've been going." Well, if you sense that, don't drive another mile in the wrong direction. It's only taking you farther from where you really need to be, where I think you really want to be, and where you were made to be.
Stop, turn around, and drive full speed in the direction of all the power and all the blessings that Almighty God wants to give you.
Monday, August 19, 2019
Jonah 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: CONSULT YOUR DESIGNER, NOT YOUR GREED
Jesus warns, “Be on your guard against every form of greed” (Luke 12:15). John D. Rockefeller was asked, “How much money does it take to satisfy a man?” He answered, “Just a little more.” Wise was the one who wrote, “Whoever loves money never has enough money; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Urge your mate to choose satisfaction over salary. Better to be married to a happy person with a thin wallet than a miserable person with a thick one. Besides, “a pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life” (Proverbs 13:7). Pursue the virtue of contentment. Because “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). Consult your design. Consult your Designer. But never consult your greed.
Jonah 1
One day long ago, God’s Word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3 But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from God as he could get.
4-6 But God sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering.
The ship was about to break into pieces. The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep. The captain came to him and said, “What’s this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we’re in trouble and rescue us.”
7 Then the sailors said to one another, “Let’s get to the bottom of this. Let’s draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who’s responsible for this disaster.”
So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.
8 Then they grilled him: “Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?”
9 He told them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship God, the God of heaven who made sea and land.”
10 At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, “What on earth have you done!” As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God.
11 They said to him, “What are we going to do with you—to get rid of this storm?” By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.
12 Jonah said, “Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It’s all my fault. I’m the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you’ll get rid of the storm.”
13 But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.
14 Then they prayed to God, “O God! Don’t let us drown because of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for his death. You are God. Do what you think is best.”
15 They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down.
16 The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of God. They worshiped God, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.
17 Then God assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish’s belly three days and nights.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 19, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Revelation 22:1–5
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Insight
The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what the future will be like when we exist together with God in eternity. Chapters 21–22 list a variety of “new” things we’ll experience in the new heaven and new earth. In today’s passage, we see the existence of two trees of life—or one tree that spans both sides of the river (22:2). Access to the tree of life was lost when Adam and Eve were banished from the garden (see Genesis 3:24). In the new heaven, its fruit, seemingly meant to be consumed, will always be available. The tree of life underscores the idea that life in the kingdom is ongoing.
Our New Home
No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city. Revelation 22:3
As the first immigrant to the US to pass through Ellis Island in 1892, Annie Moore must have felt incredible excitement at the thought of a new home and a fresh start. Millions would pass through there afterward. Just a teenager, Annie had left behind a difficult life in Ireland to start a new one. Carrying only a little bag in her hand, she came with lots of dreams, hopes, and expectations of a land of opportunity.
How much more excitement and awe will God’s children experience when we see “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). We will enter what the book of Revelation calls “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem” (v. 2). The apostle John describes this amazing place with powerful imagery. There will be “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (22:1). Water represents life and abundance, and its source will be the eternal God Himself. John says that “no longer will there be any curse” (v. 3). The beautiful, pure relationship God intended between Himself and humans will be fully restored.
How incredible to know that God, who loves His children and purchased us with the life of His Son, is preparing such an amazing new home—where He Himself will live with us and be our God (21:3). By Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
What comes to mind when you think about heaven? How does this passage from Revelation encourage you?
Father, thank You for Your love! We’re excited as we wait for that day when we will live in peace with You and each other in heaven.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 19, 2019
Self-Awareness
Come to Me… —Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one— “Come to Me….” The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 19, 2019
The Most Agonizing Race of All - #8606
"The wall." I don't know what you think of when I say that, it could just be the surface you're looking at across the room, it could be something that has been proposed for some of the immigration issues in our country. It could be the Berlin Wall that used to separate East and West Berlin. Look, forget all that. If you're a marathon runner, I'm pretty sure what you think of when you think about "the wall" is that point in a grueling 26-mile run where you feel like your body is shutting down and you can't go another step. You've used up most of what you body has to give, and everything in you seems to be saying, "Quit now!" But the champions don't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Agonizing Race of All."
Champions hit the wall and they keep on running to the finish line, no matter how much they want to give up. Finishing a race takes everything you've got and more, even if you're the Son of God - especially if you're the Son of God.
For three years of public ministry, Jesus had poured Himself out to meet the endless needs that were brought to Him, often with amazing miracles. He lived a life that was so perfect that even His enemies couldn't find anything wrong with Him, even after watching Him day and night. And He had given Himself fully to teaching the truths of His kingdom everywhere He went. He ran a perfect race.
But He hit the wall in the last lap, in a garden called Gethsemane, named after the olive press that crushed olives until the last of their juice had been squeezed out. Jesus knew that Judas, His betrayer, would soon be arriving with troops who were coming to arrest Him for the mock trial that would end in His brutal beating, and then in His crucifixion. As we watch Jesus hit the wall in this most agonizing race any man has ever run, I want you to remember He did not have to do this. He chose to do it for you.
In Luke 22, beginning with verse 41, our word for today from the Word of God, we read that "He knelt down and prayed, 'Father if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.' ... And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." A doctor friend explained to me that sweating blood is a condition known today as hematidrosis - your capillaries, in essence, explode from unbearable stress. Was it the nails that Jesus was agonizing over? Or the spear they would thrust into His side? Not ultimately.
The horror that Jesus dreaded was having all the shame and all the degradation and all the filth and destruction of your sin and mine heaped on Him on that cross. He would experience, in a brutally compressed period of time, all the eternal hell of every one of us - worst of all, the chill of having God the Father turn His back on His Son because He was carrying your sin and mine. But Jesus finished that race, in spite of unbearable, hellish suffering for you. And just before He breathed His last, He shouted triumphantly from that cross, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). Everything needed to forgive the sin of your life and get you into God's heaven - it was finished as Jesus died.
The greatest tragedy of all would be if somehow you missed all He died for and you ended up in the hell that He died to save you from. But you have to take for yourself what He died to give you. You've got to abandon all your faith in your religion, or your goodness, or anything else and give yourself totally in faith to Jesus.
The stakes of this choice are so high, they are so eternal, it doesn't make sense to risk one more day without Jesus. Do you want to belong to Him? You want to be sure you do? First of all, tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours. I'm not running things anymore. You died for me. I belong to You. I do it your way from today on."
And then please make your next step going to our website to find out where to go next; how to be sure you have begun this relationship. Here's the address: ANewStory.com.
Make sure today that you've surrendered to His love, because to miss Jesus is an awful, eternal mistake.
Jesus warns, “Be on your guard against every form of greed” (Luke 12:15). John D. Rockefeller was asked, “How much money does it take to satisfy a man?” He answered, “Just a little more.” Wise was the one who wrote, “Whoever loves money never has enough money; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Urge your mate to choose satisfaction over salary. Better to be married to a happy person with a thin wallet than a miserable person with a thick one. Besides, “a pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life” (Proverbs 13:7). Pursue the virtue of contentment. Because “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). Consult your design. Consult your Designer. But never consult your greed.
Jonah 1
One day long ago, God’s Word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: “Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.”
3 But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish—as far away from God as he could get.
4-6 But God sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering.
The ship was about to break into pieces. The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep. The captain came to him and said, “What’s this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we’re in trouble and rescue us.”
7 Then the sailors said to one another, “Let’s get to the bottom of this. Let’s draw straws to identify the culprit on this ship who’s responsible for this disaster.”
So they drew straws. Jonah got the short straw.
8 Then they grilled him: “Confess. Why this disaster? What is your work? Where do you come from? What country? What family?”
9 He told them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship God, the God of heaven who made sea and land.”
10 At that, the men were frightened, really frightened, and said, “What on earth have you done!” As Jonah talked, the sailors realized that he was running away from God.
11 They said to him, “What are we going to do with you—to get rid of this storm?” By this time the sea was wild, totally out of control.
12 Jonah said, “Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It’s all my fault. I’m the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you’ll get rid of the storm.”
13 But no. The men tried rowing back to shore. They made no headway. The storm only got worse and worse, wild and raging.
14 Then they prayed to God, “O God! Don’t let us drown because of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for his death. You are God. Do what you think is best.”
15 They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down.
16 The sailors were impressed, no longer terrified by the sea, but in awe of God. They worshiped God, offered a sacrifice, and made vows.
17 Then God assigned a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish’s belly three days and nights.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 19, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Revelation 22:1–5
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Insight
The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what the future will be like when we exist together with God in eternity. Chapters 21–22 list a variety of “new” things we’ll experience in the new heaven and new earth. In today’s passage, we see the existence of two trees of life—or one tree that spans both sides of the river (22:2). Access to the tree of life was lost when Adam and Eve were banished from the garden (see Genesis 3:24). In the new heaven, its fruit, seemingly meant to be consumed, will always be available. The tree of life underscores the idea that life in the kingdom is ongoing.
Our New Home
No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city. Revelation 22:3
As the first immigrant to the US to pass through Ellis Island in 1892, Annie Moore must have felt incredible excitement at the thought of a new home and a fresh start. Millions would pass through there afterward. Just a teenager, Annie had left behind a difficult life in Ireland to start a new one. Carrying only a little bag in her hand, she came with lots of dreams, hopes, and expectations of a land of opportunity.
How much more excitement and awe will God’s children experience when we see “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). We will enter what the book of Revelation calls “the Holy City, the new Jerusalem” (v. 2). The apostle John describes this amazing place with powerful imagery. There will be “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (22:1). Water represents life and abundance, and its source will be the eternal God Himself. John says that “no longer will there be any curse” (v. 3). The beautiful, pure relationship God intended between Himself and humans will be fully restored.
How incredible to know that God, who loves His children and purchased us with the life of His Son, is preparing such an amazing new home—where He Himself will live with us and be our God (21:3). By Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
What comes to mind when you think about heaven? How does this passage from Revelation encourage you?
Father, thank You for Your love! We’re excited as we wait for that day when we will live in peace with You and each other in heaven.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 19, 2019
Self-Awareness
Come to Me… —Matthew 11:28
God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.
Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. Beware of allowing the influence of your friends or your circumstances to divide your life. This only serves to sap your strength and slow your spiritual growth. Beware of anything that can split your oneness with Him, causing you to see yourself as separate from Him. Nothing is as important as staying right spiritually. And the only solution is a very simple one— “Come to Me….” The intellectual, moral, and spiritual depth of our reality as a person is tested and measured by these words. Yet in every detail of our lives where we are found not to be real, we would rather dispute the findings than come to Jesus.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 19, 2019
The Most Agonizing Race of All - #8606
"The wall." I don't know what you think of when I say that, it could just be the surface you're looking at across the room, it could be something that has been proposed for some of the immigration issues in our country. It could be the Berlin Wall that used to separate East and West Berlin. Look, forget all that. If you're a marathon runner, I'm pretty sure what you think of when you think about "the wall" is that point in a grueling 26-mile run where you feel like your body is shutting down and you can't go another step. You've used up most of what you body has to give, and everything in you seems to be saying, "Quit now!" But the champions don't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Agonizing Race of All."
Champions hit the wall and they keep on running to the finish line, no matter how much they want to give up. Finishing a race takes everything you've got and more, even if you're the Son of God - especially if you're the Son of God.
For three years of public ministry, Jesus had poured Himself out to meet the endless needs that were brought to Him, often with amazing miracles. He lived a life that was so perfect that even His enemies couldn't find anything wrong with Him, even after watching Him day and night. And He had given Himself fully to teaching the truths of His kingdom everywhere He went. He ran a perfect race.
But He hit the wall in the last lap, in a garden called Gethsemane, named after the olive press that crushed olives until the last of their juice had been squeezed out. Jesus knew that Judas, His betrayer, would soon be arriving with troops who were coming to arrest Him for the mock trial that would end in His brutal beating, and then in His crucifixion. As we watch Jesus hit the wall in this most agonizing race any man has ever run, I want you to remember He did not have to do this. He chose to do it for you.
In Luke 22, beginning with verse 41, our word for today from the Word of God, we read that "He knelt down and prayed, 'Father if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.' ... And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." A doctor friend explained to me that sweating blood is a condition known today as hematidrosis - your capillaries, in essence, explode from unbearable stress. Was it the nails that Jesus was agonizing over? Or the spear they would thrust into His side? Not ultimately.
The horror that Jesus dreaded was having all the shame and all the degradation and all the filth and destruction of your sin and mine heaped on Him on that cross. He would experience, in a brutally compressed period of time, all the eternal hell of every one of us - worst of all, the chill of having God the Father turn His back on His Son because He was carrying your sin and mine. But Jesus finished that race, in spite of unbearable, hellish suffering for you. And just before He breathed His last, He shouted triumphantly from that cross, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). Everything needed to forgive the sin of your life and get you into God's heaven - it was finished as Jesus died.
The greatest tragedy of all would be if somehow you missed all He died for and you ended up in the hell that He died to save you from. But you have to take for yourself what He died to give you. You've got to abandon all your faith in your religion, or your goodness, or anything else and give yourself totally in faith to Jesus.
The stakes of this choice are so high, they are so eternal, it doesn't make sense to risk one more day without Jesus. Do you want to belong to Him? You want to be sure you do? First of all, tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours. I'm not running things anymore. You died for me. I belong to You. I do it your way from today on."
And then please make your next step going to our website to find out where to go next; how to be sure you have begun this relationship. Here's the address: ANewStory.com.
Make sure today that you've surrendered to His love, because to miss Jesus is an awful, eternal mistake.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
James 5 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Twice Imprisoned
My friend, Anibal was guilty. Period. I met him in Brazil. I also met my friend Daniel who had given Anibal a Bible. And he took me with him to tell Anibal about Jesus. We centered on the cross. We talked about guilt, and forgiveness. His heart was touched as we discussed heaven, a hope no executioner could take from him. But as we discussed conversion, Anibal's face hardened. He had never backed down before any man, and he wasn't about to do it now.
"Don't you want to go to heaven?" I asked. "Sure," he grunted. But the eyes that met mine weren't tear-filled- they were the eyes of an angry prisoner. Twice imprisoned. Once because of murder, and once because of stubbornness. Jesus said, Blessed are those who know they're in trouble and have enough sense to admit it (Matthew 5:5). Anibal didn't want to…but my prayer is that we will.
From The Applause of Heaven
James 5
And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment.
4-6 All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.
7-8 Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.
9 Friends, don’t complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.
10-11 Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You’ve heard, of course, of Job’s staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That’s because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.
12 And since you know that he cares, let your language show it. Don’t add words like “I swear to God” to your own words. Don’t show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can’t be used against you.
13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
19-20 My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 19:1–9
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Footnotes:
1 Kings 19:3 Or Elijah saw
Insight
Ahab was the seventh king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. His wife Jezebel is the notoriously wicked daughter of the king of Sidon. Under her influence and dominance (1 Kings 21:25), Ahab led the nation into unprecedented idolatrous worship of the Canaanite god Baal and goddess Asherah (16:29–33). Jezebel herself supported 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah by providing food for them (18:19). She vigorously opposed the worship of Yahweh and viciously massacred Yahweh’s prophets (vv. 4, 13). She’s so fearsome that even the great prophet Elijah ran for his life when she threatened to execute him (19:2–3).
Spiritually Exhausted?
An angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 1 Kings 19:5
“Emotionally, we’ve sometimes worked a full day in one hour,” Zack Eswine writes in his book The Imperfect Pastor. Although he was referring specifically to the burdens pastors frequently carry, this is true for any of us. Weighty emotions and responsibilities can leave us physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. And all we want to do is sleep.
In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah found himself in a situation where he was depleted in every way. We read that Queen Jezebel threatened to put him to death (vv. 1–2) after she discovered he had the prophets of Baal killed (see 18:16–40). Elijah was so afraid he ran away and prayed he would die (19:3–4).
In his distress, he lay down. An angel touched him twice and told him to “get up and eat” (vv. 5, 7). After the second time, Elijah was strengthened by the food God provided, and he “traveled forty days and forty nights” until he came to a cave (vv. 8–9). There, the Lord appeared to him and recommissioned him (vv. 9–18)—and he was refreshed and able to continue the work God had for him to do.
Sometimes we too need to be encouraged in the Lord. This may come in the form of a talk with another believer, a worship song, or time in prayer and God’s Word.
Feeling exhausted? Give your burdens to God today and be refreshed! He will carry your load. By: Julie Schwab
Reflect & Pray
What area in your life is calling out for encouragement? What form may this come in and how can you seek it out?
Loving God, help me to turn to You when I am worn out. Thank You that in You I find rest.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have…” (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
My friend, Anibal was guilty. Period. I met him in Brazil. I also met my friend Daniel who had given Anibal a Bible. And he took me with him to tell Anibal about Jesus. We centered on the cross. We talked about guilt, and forgiveness. His heart was touched as we discussed heaven, a hope no executioner could take from him. But as we discussed conversion, Anibal's face hardened. He had never backed down before any man, and he wasn't about to do it now.
"Don't you want to go to heaven?" I asked. "Sure," he grunted. But the eyes that met mine weren't tear-filled- they were the eyes of an angry prisoner. Twice imprisoned. Once because of murder, and once because of stubbornness. Jesus said, Blessed are those who know they're in trouble and have enough sense to admit it (Matthew 5:5). Anibal didn't want to…but my prayer is that we will.
From The Applause of Heaven
James 5
And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment.
4-6 All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.
7-8 Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.
9 Friends, don’t complain about each other. A far greater complaint could be lodged against you, you know. The Judge is standing just around the corner.
10-11 Take the old prophets as your mentors. They put up with anything, went through everything, and never once quit, all the time honoring God. What a gift life is to those who stay the course! You’ve heard, of course, of Job’s staying power, and you know how God brought it all together for him at the end. That’s because God cares, cares right down to the last detail.
12 And since you know that he cares, let your language show it. Don’t add words like “I swear to God” to your own words. Don’t show your impatience by concocting oaths to hurry up God. Just say yes or no. Just say what is true. That way, your language can’t be used against you.
13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
19-20 My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 19:1–9
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Footnotes:
1 Kings 19:3 Or Elijah saw
Insight
Ahab was the seventh king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. His wife Jezebel is the notoriously wicked daughter of the king of Sidon. Under her influence and dominance (1 Kings 21:25), Ahab led the nation into unprecedented idolatrous worship of the Canaanite god Baal and goddess Asherah (16:29–33). Jezebel herself supported 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah by providing food for them (18:19). She vigorously opposed the worship of Yahweh and viciously massacred Yahweh’s prophets (vv. 4, 13). She’s so fearsome that even the great prophet Elijah ran for his life when she threatened to execute him (19:2–3).
Spiritually Exhausted?
An angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 1 Kings 19:5
“Emotionally, we’ve sometimes worked a full day in one hour,” Zack Eswine writes in his book The Imperfect Pastor. Although he was referring specifically to the burdens pastors frequently carry, this is true for any of us. Weighty emotions and responsibilities can leave us physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. And all we want to do is sleep.
In 1 Kings 19, the prophet Elijah found himself in a situation where he was depleted in every way. We read that Queen Jezebel threatened to put him to death (vv. 1–2) after she discovered he had the prophets of Baal killed (see 18:16–40). Elijah was so afraid he ran away and prayed he would die (19:3–4).
In his distress, he lay down. An angel touched him twice and told him to “get up and eat” (vv. 5, 7). After the second time, Elijah was strengthened by the food God provided, and he “traveled forty days and forty nights” until he came to a cave (vv. 8–9). There, the Lord appeared to him and recommissioned him (vv. 9–18)—and he was refreshed and able to continue the work God had for him to do.
Sometimes we too need to be encouraged in the Lord. This may come in the form of a talk with another believer, a worship song, or time in prayer and God’s Word.
Feeling exhausted? Give your burdens to God today and be refreshed! He will carry your load. By: Julie Schwab
Reflect & Pray
What area in your life is calling out for encouragement? What form may this come in and how can you seek it out?
Loving God, help me to turn to You when I am worn out. Thank You that in You I find rest.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?
When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:23
The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have…” (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
Saturday, August 17, 2019
2 Kings 14, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A New Name
Show a man his failures without Jesus, and the result will be found in the roadside gutter. Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three-piece suit. But get the two in the same heart—get sin to meet Savior and Savior to meet sin—and the result just might be another Pharisee turned preacher who sets the world on fire.
Saul to Paul. The apostle Paul never took a course in missions. He never read a book on church growth. He was just inspired by the Holy Spirit and punch-drunk on the love that makes the impossible possible: salvation. He called on Jesus’ name—and His name only. He got a new name and, even more, a new life. May the same happen again.
From The Applause of Heaven
2 Kings 14
In the second year of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash became king of Judah. He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin. She was from Jerusalem.
3-4 He lived the way God wanted and did the right thing. But he didn’t come up to the standards of his ancestor David; instead he lived pretty much as his father Joash had; the local sex-and-religion shrines continued to stay in business with people frequenting them.
5-6 When he had the affairs of the kingdom well in hand, he executed the palace guard that had assassinated his father the king. But he didn’t kill the sons of the assassins. He was obedient to what God commanded, written in the Word revealed to Moses, that parents shouldn’t be executed for their children’s sins, nor children for those of their parents. We each pay personally for our sins.
7 Amaziah roundly defeated Edom in the Valley of Salt to the tune of ten thousand dead. In another battle he took The Rock and renamed it Joktheel, the name it still bears.
8 One day Amaziah sent envoys to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, challenging him to a fight: “Come and meet with me—dare you. Let’s have it out face-to-face!”
9-10 Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah, “One day a thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ But then a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and stepped on the thistle, crushing it. Just because you’ve defeated Edom in battle, you now think you’re a big shot. Go ahead and be proud, but stay home. Why press your luck? Why bring defeat on yourself and Judah?”
11 Amaziah wouldn’t take No for an answer. So Jehoash king of Israel gave in and agreed to a battle between him and Amaziah king of Judah. They met at Beth Shemesh, a town of Judah.
12 Judah was thoroughly beaten by Israel—all their soldiers ran home in defeat.
13-14 Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. But Jehoash didn’t stop there; he went on to attack Jerusalem. He demolished the wall of Jerusalem all the way from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate—a stretch of about six hundred feet. He looted the gold, silver, and furnishings—anything he found that was worth taking—from both the palace and The Temple of God. And, for good measure, he took hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.
15-16 The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, his significant accomplishments and the fight with Amaziah king of Judah, are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoash died and was buried in Samaria in the cemetery of the kings of Israel. His son Jeroboam became the next king.
17-18 Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah continued as king fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel. The rest of the life and times of Amaziah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
19-20 At the last they cooked up a plot against Amaziah in Jerusalem and he had to flee to Lachish. But they tracked him down in Lachish and killed him there. They brought him back on horseback and buried him in Jerusalem, with his ancestors in the City of David.
21-22 Azariah—he was only sixteen years old at the time—was the unanimous choice of the people of Judah to succeed his father Amaziah as king. Following his father’s death, he rebuilt and restored Elath to Judah.
23-25 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel in Samaria. He ruled for forty-one years. As far as God was concerned he lived an evil life, never deviating an inch from all the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin. But he did restore the borders of Israel to Lebo Hamath in the far north and to the Dead Sea in the south, matching what God, the God of Israel, had pronounced through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.
26-27 God was fully aware of the trouble in Israel, its bitterly hard times. No one was exempt, whether slave or citizen, and no hope of help anywhere was in sight. But God wasn’t yet ready to blot out the name of Israel from history, so he used Jeroboam son of Jehoash to save them.
28-29 The rest of the life and times of Jeroboam, his victories in battle and how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath which had belonged to Judah, these are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jeroboam died and was buried with his ancestors in the royal cemetery. His son Zechariah became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Genesis 2:15–25
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[a] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[b] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[c] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Footnotes:
Genesis 2:20 Or the man
Genesis 2:21 Or took part of the man’s side
Genesis 2:22 Or part
Insight
The book of Genesis is remarkable for its portrayal of women and men as equal partners dependent on each other to flourish. In fact, Genesis 2:18–22 is the only complete account of woman’s creation in all of ancient Near Eastern literature. The Hebrew word ezer (“helper,” pronounced ay-zer) used to describe the woman (2:18, 20) is also a profoundly dignifying word, often used in Scripture to describe God as a deliverer of His people.
Created for Relationship
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
There’s a growing “rent-a-family” industry in many countries to meet the needs of lonely people. Some use the service to maintain appearances, so that at a social event they can appear to have a happy family. Some hire actors to impersonate estranged relatives, so that they can feel, if briefly, a familial connection they long for.
This trend reflects a basic truth: Humans are created for relationship. In the creation story found in Genesis, God looks at each thing He has made and sees that it’s “very good” (1:31). But when God considers Adam, He says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (2:18). The human needed another human.
The Bible doesn’t just tell us about our need for connection. It also tells us where to find relationships: among Jesus’s followers. Jesus, at His death, told His friend John to consider Christ’s mother as his own. They would be family to each other even after Jesus was gone (John 19:26–27). And Paul instructed believers to treat others like parents and siblings (1 Timothy 5:1–2). The psalmist tells us that part of God’s redemptive work in the world is to put “the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6), and God designed the church as one of the best places to do this.
Thanks be to God, who has made us for relationship and given us His people to be our family! By: Amy Peterson
Reflect & Pray
Who are the lonely people in your life who need you to be their family? How have your relationships with fellow believers sustained you through periods of loneliness?
God, help me to depend on others and to be a dependable friend as well.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
…Jesus…said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me." But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
Show a man his failures without Jesus, and the result will be found in the roadside gutter. Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three-piece suit. But get the two in the same heart—get sin to meet Savior and Savior to meet sin—and the result just might be another Pharisee turned preacher who sets the world on fire.
Saul to Paul. The apostle Paul never took a course in missions. He never read a book on church growth. He was just inspired by the Holy Spirit and punch-drunk on the love that makes the impossible possible: salvation. He called on Jesus’ name—and His name only. He got a new name and, even more, a new life. May the same happen again.
From The Applause of Heaven
2 Kings 14
In the second year of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash became king of Judah. He was twenty-five years old when he became king and he reigned for twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin. She was from Jerusalem.
3-4 He lived the way God wanted and did the right thing. But he didn’t come up to the standards of his ancestor David; instead he lived pretty much as his father Joash had; the local sex-and-religion shrines continued to stay in business with people frequenting them.
5-6 When he had the affairs of the kingdom well in hand, he executed the palace guard that had assassinated his father the king. But he didn’t kill the sons of the assassins. He was obedient to what God commanded, written in the Word revealed to Moses, that parents shouldn’t be executed for their children’s sins, nor children for those of their parents. We each pay personally for our sins.
7 Amaziah roundly defeated Edom in the Valley of Salt to the tune of ten thousand dead. In another battle he took The Rock and renamed it Joktheel, the name it still bears.
8 One day Amaziah sent envoys to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, challenging him to a fight: “Come and meet with me—dare you. Let’s have it out face-to-face!”
9-10 Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah, “One day a thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ But then a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and stepped on the thistle, crushing it. Just because you’ve defeated Edom in battle, you now think you’re a big shot. Go ahead and be proud, but stay home. Why press your luck? Why bring defeat on yourself and Judah?”
11 Amaziah wouldn’t take No for an answer. So Jehoash king of Israel gave in and agreed to a battle between him and Amaziah king of Judah. They met at Beth Shemesh, a town of Judah.
12 Judah was thoroughly beaten by Israel—all their soldiers ran home in defeat.
13-14 Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. But Jehoash didn’t stop there; he went on to attack Jerusalem. He demolished the wall of Jerusalem all the way from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate—a stretch of about six hundred feet. He looted the gold, silver, and furnishings—anything he found that was worth taking—from both the palace and The Temple of God. And, for good measure, he took hostages. Then he returned to Samaria.
15-16 The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, his significant accomplishments and the fight with Amaziah king of Judah, are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoash died and was buried in Samaria in the cemetery of the kings of Israel. His son Jeroboam became the next king.
17-18 Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah continued as king fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel. The rest of the life and times of Amaziah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.
19-20 At the last they cooked up a plot against Amaziah in Jerusalem and he had to flee to Lachish. But they tracked him down in Lachish and killed him there. They brought him back on horseback and buried him in Jerusalem, with his ancestors in the City of David.
21-22 Azariah—he was only sixteen years old at the time—was the unanimous choice of the people of Judah to succeed his father Amaziah as king. Following his father’s death, he rebuilt and restored Elath to Judah.
23-25 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel in Samaria. He ruled for forty-one years. As far as God was concerned he lived an evil life, never deviating an inch from all the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin. But he did restore the borders of Israel to Lebo Hamath in the far north and to the Dead Sea in the south, matching what God, the God of Israel, had pronounced through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.
26-27 God was fully aware of the trouble in Israel, its bitterly hard times. No one was exempt, whether slave or citizen, and no hope of help anywhere was in sight. But God wasn’t yet ready to blot out the name of Israel from history, so he used Jeroboam son of Jehoash to save them.
28-29 The rest of the life and times of Jeroboam, his victories in battle and how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath which had belonged to Judah, these are all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jeroboam died and was buried with his ancestors in the royal cemetery. His son Zechariah became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Genesis 2:15–25
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[a] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[b] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[c] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Footnotes:
Genesis 2:20 Or the man
Genesis 2:21 Or took part of the man’s side
Genesis 2:22 Or part
Insight
The book of Genesis is remarkable for its portrayal of women and men as equal partners dependent on each other to flourish. In fact, Genesis 2:18–22 is the only complete account of woman’s creation in all of ancient Near Eastern literature. The Hebrew word ezer (“helper,” pronounced ay-zer) used to describe the woman (2:18, 20) is also a profoundly dignifying word, often used in Scripture to describe God as a deliverer of His people.
Created for Relationship
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18
There’s a growing “rent-a-family” industry in many countries to meet the needs of lonely people. Some use the service to maintain appearances, so that at a social event they can appear to have a happy family. Some hire actors to impersonate estranged relatives, so that they can feel, if briefly, a familial connection they long for.
This trend reflects a basic truth: Humans are created for relationship. In the creation story found in Genesis, God looks at each thing He has made and sees that it’s “very good” (1:31). But when God considers Adam, He says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (2:18). The human needed another human.
The Bible doesn’t just tell us about our need for connection. It also tells us where to find relationships: among Jesus’s followers. Jesus, at His death, told His friend John to consider Christ’s mother as his own. They would be family to each other even after Jesus was gone (John 19:26–27). And Paul instructed believers to treat others like parents and siblings (1 Timothy 5:1–2). The psalmist tells us that part of God’s redemptive work in the world is to put “the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6), and God designed the church as one of the best places to do this.
Thanks be to God, who has made us for relationship and given us His people to be our family! By: Amy Peterson
Reflect & Pray
Who are the lonely people in your life who need you to be their family? How have your relationships with fellow believers sustained you through periods of loneliness?
God, help me to depend on others and to be a dependable friend as well.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Are You Discouraged or Devoted?
…Jesus…said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me." But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. —Luke 18:22-23
Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all. Jesus says a tremendous amount to us that we listen to, but do not actually hear. And once we do hear Him, His words are harsh and unyielding.
Jesus did not show the least concern that this rich young ruler should do what He told him, nor did Jesus make any attempt to keep this man with Him. He simply said to him, “Sell all that you have…and come, follow Me.” Our Lord never pleaded with him; He never tried to lure him— He simply spoke the strictest words that human ears have ever heard, and then left him alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say something difficult and unyielding to me? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened— not something I can explain for the sake of others, but something I have heard Him say directly to me? This man understood what Jesus said. He heard it clearly, realizing the full impact of its meaning, and it broke his heart. He did not go away as a defiant person, but as one who was sorrowful and discouraged. He had come to Jesus on fire with zeal and determination, but the words of Jesus simply froze him. Instead of producing enthusiastic devotion to Jesus, they produced heartbreaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, but let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly well that once His word is truly heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. What is so terrible is that some of us prevent His words from bearing fruit in our present life. I wonder what we will say when we finally make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain— He will never throw our past failures back in our faces.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
Friday, August 16, 2019
2 Kings 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: EXAMINE YOUR GIFTS AND STRENGTHS
Be careful! In a desire to be great, one might cease being any good. Not every teacher is equipped to be a principal. Not every carpenter has the skill to head a crew. Not every musician should conduct an orchestra. A promotion might promote a person right out of their sweet spot. For the love of more, a person might lose their purpose. Greed makes a poor job counselor.
Examine your gifts; know your strengths. Romans 12:3 says to “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities.” Proverbs 15:16 says, “It is better to have little with fear for the LORD than to have great treasure with turmoil.” Don’t let the itch for things or the ear for applause derail you from your God-intended design!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
2 Kings 13
In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel in Samaria—a rule of seventeen years. He lived an evil life before God, walking step for step in the tracks of Jeroboam son of Nebat who led Israel into a life of sin, swerving neither left or right. Exasperated, God was furious with Israel and turned them over to Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad son of Hazael. This domination went on for a long time.
4-6 Then Jehoahaz prayed for a softening of God’s anger, and God listened. He realized how wretched Israel had become under the brutalities of the king of Aram. So God provided a savior for Israel who brought them out from under Aram’s oppression. The children of Israel were again able to live at peace in their own homes. But it didn’t make any difference: They didn’t change their lives, didn’t turn away from the Jeroboam-sins that now characterized Israel, including the sex-and-religion shrines of Asherah still flourishing in Samaria.
7 Nothing was left of Jehoahaz’s army after Hazael’s oppression except for fifty cavalry, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry. The king of Aram had decimated the rest, leaving behind him mostly chaff.
8-9 The rest of the life and times of Jehoahaz, the record of his accomplishments, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoahaz died and was buried with his ancestors in Samaria. His son Jehoash succeeded him as king.
10-11 In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria—a reign of sixteen years. In God’s eyes he lived an evil life. He didn’t deviate one bit from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin. He plodded along in the same tracks, step after step.
12-13 The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, the record of his accomplishments and his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoash died and joined his ancestors. Jeroboam took over his throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria in the royal cemetery.
14 Elisha came down sick. It was the sickness of which he would soon die. Jehoash king of Israel paid him a visit. When he saw him he wept openly, crying, “My father, my father! Chariot and horsemen of Israel!”
15 Elisha told him, “Go and get a bow and some arrows.” The king brought him the bow and arrows.
16 Then he told the king, “Put your hand on the bow.” He put his hand on the bow. Then Elisha put his hand over the hand of the king.
17 Elisha said, “Now open the east window.” He opened it.
Then he said, “Shoot!” And he shot.
“The arrow of God’s salvation!” exclaimed Elisha. “The arrow of deliverance from Aram! You will do battle against Aram until there’s nothing left of it.”
18 “Now pick up the other arrows,” said Elisha. He picked them up.
Then he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground.”
The king struck the ground three times and then quit.
19 The Holy Man became angry with him: “Why didn’t you hit the ground five or six times? Then you would beat Aram until he was finished. As it is, you’ll defeat him three times only.”
20-21 Then Elisha died and they buried him.
Some time later, raiding bands of Moabites, as they often did, invaded the country. One day, some men were burying a man and spotted the raiders. They threw the man into Elisha’s tomb and got away. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came alive, stood up, and walked out on his own two feet.
22-24 Hazael king of Aram badgered and bedeviled Israel all through the reign of Jehoahaz. But God was gracious and showed mercy to them. He stuck with them out of respect for his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day. Hazael king of Aram died. His son Ben-Hadad was the next king.
25 Jehoash son of Jehoahaz turned things around and took back the cities that Ben-Hadad son of Hazael had taken from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash went to war three times and defeated him each time, recapturing the cities of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 16, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Samuel 11:2–15
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
Footnotes:
2 Samuel 11:11 Or staying at Sukkoth
Insight
Uriah—Bathsheba’s husband—is listed among David’s “mighty men” (2 Samuel 23:39). He’s also identified as a Hittite (11:3), a Canaanite tribe listed consistently with the nations that Israel would conquer upon entering the promised land (Exodus 3:8). Other significant Hittites in the Old Testament include Ahimelek, another of David’s soldiers (1 Samuel 26:6); and Ephron, from whom Abraham purchased the cave in which he buried his wife Sarah (Genesis 23:2–20).
A Sad Story
The thing David had done displeased the Lord. 2 Samuel 11:27
Painfully, the evil that has long been swept under the rug—sexual abuse of many women by men who had power over them—has come to light. Enduring headline after headline, my heart sank when I heard proof of abuse by two men I admired. The church has not been immune to these issues.
King David faced his own reckoning. Samuel tells us that one afternoon, David “saw a woman bathing” (2 Samuel 11:2). And David wanted her. Though Bathsheba was the wife of one his loyal soldiers (Uriah), David took her anyway. When Bathsheba told David she was pregnant, he panicked. And in a despicable act of treachery, David arranged for Joab to have Uriah die on the battlefield.
There is no hiding David’s abuse of power against Bathsheba and Uriah. Here it is in full color, Samuel ensuring we see it. We must deal with our evil.
Also, we must hear these stories because they caution us against the abuse of power in our times. This was David, “a man after [God’s] own heart” (Acts 13:22), but also a man who needed to be held accountable for his actions. May we also prayerfully hold leaders accountable for how they use or abuse power.
By God’s grace, redemption is possible. If we read further, we encounter David’s profound repentance (2 Samuel 12:13). Thankfully, hard hearts can still turn from death to life. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
Why is it important to prayerfully address the abuse of power in our midst and in our world? How did Jesus reveal the right way to live out true power?
God, I don’t know what to do with all the brokenness I see in my world, the brokenness in me. Will You shine Your light and heal us?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 16, 2019
Does He Know Me?
He calls his own…by name… —John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. “…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus….Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ ” (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. “She turned and said to Him, ‘Rabboni!’ ” (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus— maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, “Unless I see…I will not believe” (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. “Thomas…said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, “Lord…You know that I love You” (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him— a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 16, 2019
The Paralysis of Analysis - #8505
It's got to be one of my favorite plays - "Fiddler on the Roof." The story is virtually a modern classic. It tells with this incredible charm and warmth the story of 19th Century Jews in Russia. All the joys of Jewish faith and Jewish family are there, along with the pain of persecution for being Jewish. Tevye, the milkman, is the colorful father of the family; a man who is forever arguing with himself. If you're familiar with the play, you'll remember how his conversations with himself - and even with God - will go back and forth as he talks himself in and out of opposite viewpoints. Tevye will present one view, and then inadvertently he will say, "On the other hand..." and he'll talk himself out of it. He doesn't actually reach many conclusions!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Paralysis of Analysis."
There are a lot of folks who have a little bit of Tevye in them - always analyzing, often not reaching any conclusion. I'm a data-based decision maker. I like to weigh all the information I can before I make a decision or a commitment. And that's a good thing until it paralyzes you; until it keeps you from exercising the one thing the Bible says you have to have to please God - faith.
In John 6, beginning with verse 7, we see an example of the disciples going as far as analyzing could take them and nearly missing a great miracle. Jesus and His disciples are facing this hungry multitude of at least 5,000 people. Sizing up the situation analytically, in our word for today from the Word of God, Philip gets his calculator out and tells Jesus, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" So much for the earth-math. Jesus is about to do something that earth-math could never anticipate.
Andrew's calculation is simpler but it leads to the same human-sense conclusion. He said, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" But using miracle-math instead of earth-math, Jesus instructs His men to "Have the people sit down." You probably know the rest. Thousands were fed from that one small lunch, and the disciples "filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over." Don't you just love it - one basket of leftovers for each disciple. So much for earth-math.
When Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth, all the people there could do was analyze Jesus' history, and the Bible says it was the one place Jesus could do no miracle because of their unbelief. Endless analysis (intellectual, theological) ultimately takes you in this futile circle and it often costs you the miracles that come only to those who risk everything on a great Savior.
"We walk by faith, not by sight," Paul says (2 Corinthians 5:7). Now some people need to think a little more and they need to use their God-given mind to seek out the truth. But there's only so far thinking and analyzing can take you. Those who try to figure out the science of stepping out of a boat when Jesus says to, will never know what it is to walk on water.
Right now, God may be asking you to take a step that doesn't quite add up. All your analyzing can't show you how you're going to get from here to there. The bridge over that gap? Yeah, it has a name. It's called faith.
Don't miss some wonderful things God wants to do because you're suffering from the paralysis of analysis. You belong to a Lord who loves to do, as the Bible says, "immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine!" (Ephesians 3:20).
Be careful! In a desire to be great, one might cease being any good. Not every teacher is equipped to be a principal. Not every carpenter has the skill to head a crew. Not every musician should conduct an orchestra. A promotion might promote a person right out of their sweet spot. For the love of more, a person might lose their purpose. Greed makes a poor job counselor.
Examine your gifts; know your strengths. Romans 12:3 says to “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities.” Proverbs 15:16 says, “It is better to have little with fear for the LORD than to have great treasure with turmoil.” Don’t let the itch for things or the ear for applause derail you from your God-intended design!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
2 Kings 13
In the twenty-third year of Joash son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel in Samaria—a rule of seventeen years. He lived an evil life before God, walking step for step in the tracks of Jeroboam son of Nebat who led Israel into a life of sin, swerving neither left or right. Exasperated, God was furious with Israel and turned them over to Hazael king of Aram and Ben-Hadad son of Hazael. This domination went on for a long time.
4-6 Then Jehoahaz prayed for a softening of God’s anger, and God listened. He realized how wretched Israel had become under the brutalities of the king of Aram. So God provided a savior for Israel who brought them out from under Aram’s oppression. The children of Israel were again able to live at peace in their own homes. But it didn’t make any difference: They didn’t change their lives, didn’t turn away from the Jeroboam-sins that now characterized Israel, including the sex-and-religion shrines of Asherah still flourishing in Samaria.
7 Nothing was left of Jehoahaz’s army after Hazael’s oppression except for fifty cavalry, ten chariots, and ten thousand infantry. The king of Aram had decimated the rest, leaving behind him mostly chaff.
8-9 The rest of the life and times of Jehoahaz, the record of his accomplishments, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoahaz died and was buried with his ancestors in Samaria. His son Jehoash succeeded him as king.
10-11 In the thirty-seventh year of Joash king of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel in Samaria—a reign of sixteen years. In God’s eyes he lived an evil life. He didn’t deviate one bit from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into a life of sin. He plodded along in the same tracks, step after step.
12-13 The rest of the life and times of Jehoash, the record of his accomplishments and his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Jehoash died and joined his ancestors. Jeroboam took over his throne. Jehoash was buried in Samaria in the royal cemetery.
14 Elisha came down sick. It was the sickness of which he would soon die. Jehoash king of Israel paid him a visit. When he saw him he wept openly, crying, “My father, my father! Chariot and horsemen of Israel!”
15 Elisha told him, “Go and get a bow and some arrows.” The king brought him the bow and arrows.
16 Then he told the king, “Put your hand on the bow.” He put his hand on the bow. Then Elisha put his hand over the hand of the king.
17 Elisha said, “Now open the east window.” He opened it.
Then he said, “Shoot!” And he shot.
“The arrow of God’s salvation!” exclaimed Elisha. “The arrow of deliverance from Aram! You will do battle against Aram until there’s nothing left of it.”
18 “Now pick up the other arrows,” said Elisha. He picked them up.
Then he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground.”
The king struck the ground three times and then quit.
19 The Holy Man became angry with him: “Why didn’t you hit the ground five or six times? Then you would beat Aram until he was finished. As it is, you’ll defeat him three times only.”
20-21 Then Elisha died and they buried him.
Some time later, raiding bands of Moabites, as they often did, invaded the country. One day, some men were burying a man and spotted the raiders. They threw the man into Elisha’s tomb and got away. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came alive, stood up, and walked out on his own two feet.
22-24 Hazael king of Aram badgered and bedeviled Israel all through the reign of Jehoahaz. But God was gracious and showed mercy to them. He stuck with them out of respect for his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He never gave up on them, never even considered discarding them, even to this day. Hazael king of Aram died. His son Ben-Hadad was the next king.
25 Jehoash son of Jehoahaz turned things around and took back the cities that Ben-Hadad son of Hazael had taken from his father Jehoahaz. Jehoash went to war three times and defeated him each time, recapturing the cities of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 16, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Samuel 11:2–15
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents,[a] and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
Footnotes:
2 Samuel 11:11 Or staying at Sukkoth
Insight
Uriah—Bathsheba’s husband—is listed among David’s “mighty men” (2 Samuel 23:39). He’s also identified as a Hittite (11:3), a Canaanite tribe listed consistently with the nations that Israel would conquer upon entering the promised land (Exodus 3:8). Other significant Hittites in the Old Testament include Ahimelek, another of David’s soldiers (1 Samuel 26:6); and Ephron, from whom Abraham purchased the cave in which he buried his wife Sarah (Genesis 23:2–20).
A Sad Story
The thing David had done displeased the Lord. 2 Samuel 11:27
Painfully, the evil that has long been swept under the rug—sexual abuse of many women by men who had power over them—has come to light. Enduring headline after headline, my heart sank when I heard proof of abuse by two men I admired. The church has not been immune to these issues.
King David faced his own reckoning. Samuel tells us that one afternoon, David “saw a woman bathing” (2 Samuel 11:2). And David wanted her. Though Bathsheba was the wife of one his loyal soldiers (Uriah), David took her anyway. When Bathsheba told David she was pregnant, he panicked. And in a despicable act of treachery, David arranged for Joab to have Uriah die on the battlefield.
There is no hiding David’s abuse of power against Bathsheba and Uriah. Here it is in full color, Samuel ensuring we see it. We must deal with our evil.
Also, we must hear these stories because they caution us against the abuse of power in our times. This was David, “a man after [God’s] own heart” (Acts 13:22), but also a man who needed to be held accountable for his actions. May we also prayerfully hold leaders accountable for how they use or abuse power.
By God’s grace, redemption is possible. If we read further, we encounter David’s profound repentance (2 Samuel 12:13). Thankfully, hard hearts can still turn from death to life. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
Why is it important to prayerfully address the abuse of power in our midst and in our world? How did Jesus reveal the right way to live out true power?
God, I don’t know what to do with all the brokenness I see in my world, the brokenness in me. Will You shine Your light and heal us?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 16, 2019
Does He Know Me?
He calls his own…by name… —John 10:3
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (see John 20:11-18). It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact, any Pharisee could have made a fool of Mary doctrinally, but one thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (see Luke 8:2); yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison with knowing Jesus Himself. “…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus….Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ ” (John 20:14, 16). Once He called Mary by her name, she immediately knew that she had a personal history with the One who spoke. “She turned and said to Him, ‘Rabboni!’ ” (John 20:16).
When I have stubbornly doubted? (see John 20:24-29). Have I been doubting something about Jesus— maybe an experience to which others testify, but which I have not yet experienced? The other disciples said to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25). But Thomas doubted, saying, “Unless I see…I will not believe” (John 20:25). Thomas needed the personal touch of Jesus. When His touches will come we never know, but when they do come they are indescribably precious. “Thomas…said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” (John 20:28).
When I have selfishly denied Him? (see John 21:15-17). Peter denied Jesus Christ with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75), and yet after His resurrection Jesus appeared to Peter alone. Jesus restored Peter in private, and then He restored him publicly before the others. And Peter said to Him, “Lord…You know that I love You” (John 21:17).
Do I have a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one true sign of discipleship is intimate oneness with Him— a knowledge of Jesus that nothing can shake.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 16, 2019
The Paralysis of Analysis - #8505
It's got to be one of my favorite plays - "Fiddler on the Roof." The story is virtually a modern classic. It tells with this incredible charm and warmth the story of 19th Century Jews in Russia. All the joys of Jewish faith and Jewish family are there, along with the pain of persecution for being Jewish. Tevye, the milkman, is the colorful father of the family; a man who is forever arguing with himself. If you're familiar with the play, you'll remember how his conversations with himself - and even with God - will go back and forth as he talks himself in and out of opposite viewpoints. Tevye will present one view, and then inadvertently he will say, "On the other hand..." and he'll talk himself out of it. He doesn't actually reach many conclusions!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Paralysis of Analysis."
There are a lot of folks who have a little bit of Tevye in them - always analyzing, often not reaching any conclusion. I'm a data-based decision maker. I like to weigh all the information I can before I make a decision or a commitment. And that's a good thing until it paralyzes you; until it keeps you from exercising the one thing the Bible says you have to have to please God - faith.
In John 6, beginning with verse 7, we see an example of the disciples going as far as analyzing could take them and nearly missing a great miracle. Jesus and His disciples are facing this hungry multitude of at least 5,000 people. Sizing up the situation analytically, in our word for today from the Word of God, Philip gets his calculator out and tells Jesus, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" So much for the earth-math. Jesus is about to do something that earth-math could never anticipate.
Andrew's calculation is simpler but it leads to the same human-sense conclusion. He said, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" But using miracle-math instead of earth-math, Jesus instructs His men to "Have the people sit down." You probably know the rest. Thousands were fed from that one small lunch, and the disciples "filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over." Don't you just love it - one basket of leftovers for each disciple. So much for earth-math.
When Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth, all the people there could do was analyze Jesus' history, and the Bible says it was the one place Jesus could do no miracle because of their unbelief. Endless analysis (intellectual, theological) ultimately takes you in this futile circle and it often costs you the miracles that come only to those who risk everything on a great Savior.
"We walk by faith, not by sight," Paul says (2 Corinthians 5:7). Now some people need to think a little more and they need to use their God-given mind to seek out the truth. But there's only so far thinking and analyzing can take you. Those who try to figure out the science of stepping out of a boat when Jesus says to, will never know what it is to walk on water.
Right now, God may be asking you to take a step that doesn't quite add up. All your analyzing can't show you how you're going to get from here to there. The bridge over that gap? Yeah, it has a name. It's called faith.
Don't miss some wonderful things God wants to do because you're suffering from the paralysis of analysis. You belong to a Lord who loves to do, as the Bible says, "immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine!" (Ephesians 3:20).
Thursday, August 15, 2019
James 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: YOU WERE MADE FOR THIS
Listen to the way God described the builder Bezalel, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, intelligence and skill in all kinds of crafts. . .” (Exodus 31:3-5). Can you hear the pleasure in God’s voice?
When you do the most what you do the best, you pop the pride buttons on the vest of God. In the movie Chariots of Fire Eric Liddell defended his devotion to running by telling his sister, “God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.” When do you feel God’s pleasure? When do you look up into the heavens and say, “I was made to do this?” When it comes to being you, you were made for the part. So speak your lines with confidence!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
James 4
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
2-3 You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
4-6 You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”
7-10 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.
11-12 Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?
13-15 And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
16-17 As it is, you are full of your grandiose selves. All such vaunting self-importance is evil. In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is evil.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 15:1–6
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”[a] 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Footnotes:
Romans 15:3 Psalm 69:9
Insight
In his writing to first-century believers, Paul referred to Jesus as the prime example of the kind of selfless conduct that believers in Christ should model in their relationships with each other. Twice in Romans 15:1–6, Paul directs our attention to Jesus as a pattern for our conduct (vv. 3, 5). Just as Jesus didn’t please Himself, so believers shouldn’t be only concerned with themselves but with pleasing their neighbors to build them up (vv. 1–3). Then in verse 5 Paul prays, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.” We see this same theme in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he points to Jesus as the primary example of self-sacrificial humility (2:1–11). When Christ is the model for our attitudes and actions, others can feel safe around us because we’re His agents of encouragement.
Lincoln’s Pockets
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. Romans 15:2
The night US president Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater in 1865, his pockets contained the following: two spectacles, a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a handkerchief, a leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate bill, and eight newspaper clippings, including several that praised him and his policies.
I wonder what the Confederate money was doing in the president’s pocket, but I have little doubt about the glowing news stories. Everyone needs encouragement, even a great leader like Lincoln! Can you see him, in the moments before the fateful play, perhaps reading them to his wife?
Who do you know who needs encouragement? Everyone! Look around you. There isn’t one person in your line of vision who is as confident as they seem. We’re all one failure, snide comment, or bad hair day away from self-doubt.
What if we all obeyed God’s command to “please our neighbors for their good, to build them up”? (Romans 15:2). What if we determined only to speak “gracious words” that are “sweet to the soul and healing to the bones”? (Proverbs 16:24). What if we wrote these words down, so friends could reread and savor them? Then we’d all have notes in our pockets (or on our phones!). And we’d be more like Jesus, who “did not please himself” but lived for others (Romans 15:3). By: Mike Wittmer
Reflect & Pray
Whose words have most encouraged you? Who might need encouragement that you’ve been overlooking?
Loving God, help me to encourage others with my words, actions, and presence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 15, 2019
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again. —John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?” is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
“But as many as received Him…” (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
“…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ” (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God’s kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God’s control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin…” (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, “Should a Christian sin?” The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin— it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Go When the Gate Is Open - #8504
I was speaking at this beautiful conference center, and I'd actually been expecting to stay at the inn where the conferees would be, because that's where I've stayed on previous occasions. But this time they gave my wife and me the key to what they called one of their "remote cabins." Well, I asked the man in charge if everyone they sent to those cabins came back. He smiled and said, "Yeah, if the bears don't get you." Oh that's nice! Actually, it was a fabulous cabin, nestled in the woods with this spectacular mountain view. But there's limited access to these cabins. They're located on a long mountain lane, the entrance to which is unmarked and guarded by a gate. They gave us a pass that opens that gate. Apparently, they don't want anyone else following you in. I'll tell you, that gate opens for a brief time and then it closes. So get movin', buddy! My guess is that the bears? I don't think they need a pass.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Go When the Gate Is Open."
That's what I learned real fast when I saw that the gate guarding the road didn't stay open forever. Tragically, it's something that many people never realize about God's road to heaven; the gate isn't always going to be open. You have to go in when the gate is open. That's why God warns us in Isaiah 55:7, our word for today from the Word of God, to "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near."
The implication: the Lord may not always be able to be found. He won't always be near. That's why you have to come to Him while He is. The gate to get to God could not be clearer. It's not a religion - no religion including Christian religion. It's a person. Jesus said, "I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved." That "saved" word? It's like being rescued. In this case from the spiritual death penalty that hangs over every one of us because every one of us has broken God's laws; every one of us has put "me" first instead of our Creator. Like a person who is trapped in the rubble of an earthquake, our only hope is the rescuer who risks his own life to save us. When it comes to the hellish penalty for our sin, only the One who died for that sin can rescue us.
And when He comes to you, offering His rescue, that's the time to grab His hand. He may come more than once, but don't count on Him coming forever. God has said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever" (Genesis 6:3). We make the deadly mistake of thinking that we'll come to Jesus when we're ready. That's wrong. You can only come when He's ready. In our sin-deadness, we can't come to Him unless He's working in our heart. Jesus told us, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44).
If this day you feel a tug in your heart to get things right with Jesus, I think that's God drawing you. It's His invitation. It's not mine. God's Word says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart" (Hebrews 4:7). I don't know how many more times the gate will be open. This is the only opportunity you can be sure of. To miss Him is to miss the meaning of this life and any hope of eternal life.
If you sense that He's drawing you to Him today, please give yourself to this One who died for you. Grab His hand. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm sorry for the sins of my life. I'm turning from them; I'm not running things anymore - You are. Your death for my sins...your resurrection from the dead is my only hope. Thank you for coming to me one more time, because from this day on, Jesus, I'm Yours."
If that's where your heart is right now, that's what our website was set up for. A person like you at a time like this. The website is ANewStory.com. Please, as soon as you can today, would you find that and there find, I believe, the information that will help you know that you belong to Jesus once and for all.
The gate is open today, and there is no other way to heaven. The gate won't stay open forever, though. But today it's open. Go in while you can.
Listen to the way God described the builder Bezalel, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, intelligence and skill in all kinds of crafts. . .” (Exodus 31:3-5). Can you hear the pleasure in God’s voice?
When you do the most what you do the best, you pop the pride buttons on the vest of God. In the movie Chariots of Fire Eric Liddell defended his devotion to running by telling his sister, “God made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.” When do you feel God’s pleasure? When do you look up into the heavens and say, “I was made to do this?” When it comes to being you, you were made for the part. So speak your lines with confidence!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
James 4
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
2-3 You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
4-6 You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”
7-10 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.
11-12 Don’t bad-mouth each other, friends. It’s God’s Word, his Message, his Royal Rule, that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?
13-15 And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
16-17 As it is, you are full of your grandiose selves. All such vaunting self-importance is evil. In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is evil.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 15:1–6
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”[a] 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, 6 so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Footnotes:
Romans 15:3 Psalm 69:9
Insight
In his writing to first-century believers, Paul referred to Jesus as the prime example of the kind of selfless conduct that believers in Christ should model in their relationships with each other. Twice in Romans 15:1–6, Paul directs our attention to Jesus as a pattern for our conduct (vv. 3, 5). Just as Jesus didn’t please Himself, so believers shouldn’t be only concerned with themselves but with pleasing their neighbors to build them up (vv. 1–3). Then in verse 5 Paul prays, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had.” We see this same theme in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where he points to Jesus as the primary example of self-sacrificial humility (2:1–11). When Christ is the model for our attitudes and actions, others can feel safe around us because we’re His agents of encouragement.
Lincoln’s Pockets
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. Romans 15:2
The night US president Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater in 1865, his pockets contained the following: two spectacles, a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a handkerchief, a leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate bill, and eight newspaper clippings, including several that praised him and his policies.
I wonder what the Confederate money was doing in the president’s pocket, but I have little doubt about the glowing news stories. Everyone needs encouragement, even a great leader like Lincoln! Can you see him, in the moments before the fateful play, perhaps reading them to his wife?
Who do you know who needs encouragement? Everyone! Look around you. There isn’t one person in your line of vision who is as confident as they seem. We’re all one failure, snide comment, or bad hair day away from self-doubt.
What if we all obeyed God’s command to “please our neighbors for their good, to build them up”? (Romans 15:2). What if we determined only to speak “gracious words” that are “sweet to the soul and healing to the bones”? (Proverbs 16:24). What if we wrote these words down, so friends could reread and savor them? Then we’d all have notes in our pockets (or on our phones!). And we’d be more like Jesus, who “did not please himself” but lived for others (Romans 15:3). By: Mike Wittmer
Reflect & Pray
Whose words have most encouraged you? Who might need encouragement that you’ve been overlooking?
Loving God, help me to encourage others with my words, actions, and presence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 15, 2019
The Evidence of the New Birth
You must be born again. —John 3:7
The answer to Nicodemus’ question, “How can a man be born when he is old?” is: Only when he is willing to die to everything in his life, including his rights, his virtues, and his religion, and becomes willing to receive into himself a new life that he has never before experienced (John 3:4). This new life exhibits itself in our conscious repentance and through our unconscious holiness.
“But as many as received Him…” (John 1:12). Is my knowledge of Jesus the result of my own internal spiritual perception, or is it only what I have learned through listening to others? Is there something in my life that unites me with the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior? My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus.
“…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ” (John 3:3). Am I seeking only for the evidence of God’s kingdom, or am I actually recognizing His absolute sovereign control? The new birth gives me a new power of vision by which I begin to discern God’s control. His sovereignty was there all the time, but with God being true to His nature, I could not see it until I received His very nature myself.
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin…” (1 John 3:9). Am I seeking to stop sinning or have I actually stopped? To be born of God means that I have His supernatural power to stop sinning. The Bible never asks, “Should a Christian sin?” The Bible emphatically states that a Christian must not sin. The work of the new birth is being effective in us when we do not commit sin. It is not merely that we have the power not to sin, but that we have actually stopped sinning. Yet 1 John 3:9 does not mean that we cannot sin— it simply means that if we will obey the life of God in us, that we do not have to sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of personal life. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Go When the Gate Is Open - #8504
I was speaking at this beautiful conference center, and I'd actually been expecting to stay at the inn where the conferees would be, because that's where I've stayed on previous occasions. But this time they gave my wife and me the key to what they called one of their "remote cabins." Well, I asked the man in charge if everyone they sent to those cabins came back. He smiled and said, "Yeah, if the bears don't get you." Oh that's nice! Actually, it was a fabulous cabin, nestled in the woods with this spectacular mountain view. But there's limited access to these cabins. They're located on a long mountain lane, the entrance to which is unmarked and guarded by a gate. They gave us a pass that opens that gate. Apparently, they don't want anyone else following you in. I'll tell you, that gate opens for a brief time and then it closes. So get movin', buddy! My guess is that the bears? I don't think they need a pass.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Go When the Gate Is Open."
That's what I learned real fast when I saw that the gate guarding the road didn't stay open forever. Tragically, it's something that many people never realize about God's road to heaven; the gate isn't always going to be open. You have to go in when the gate is open. That's why God warns us in Isaiah 55:7, our word for today from the Word of God, to "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near."
The implication: the Lord may not always be able to be found. He won't always be near. That's why you have to come to Him while He is. The gate to get to God could not be clearer. It's not a religion - no religion including Christian religion. It's a person. Jesus said, "I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved." That "saved" word? It's like being rescued. In this case from the spiritual death penalty that hangs over every one of us because every one of us has broken God's laws; every one of us has put "me" first instead of our Creator. Like a person who is trapped in the rubble of an earthquake, our only hope is the rescuer who risks his own life to save us. When it comes to the hellish penalty for our sin, only the One who died for that sin can rescue us.
And when He comes to you, offering His rescue, that's the time to grab His hand. He may come more than once, but don't count on Him coming forever. God has said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever" (Genesis 6:3). We make the deadly mistake of thinking that we'll come to Jesus when we're ready. That's wrong. You can only come when He's ready. In our sin-deadness, we can't come to Him unless He's working in our heart. Jesus told us, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44).
If this day you feel a tug in your heart to get things right with Jesus, I think that's God drawing you. It's His invitation. It's not mine. God's Word says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart" (Hebrews 4:7). I don't know how many more times the gate will be open. This is the only opportunity you can be sure of. To miss Him is to miss the meaning of this life and any hope of eternal life.
If you sense that He's drawing you to Him today, please give yourself to this One who died for you. Grab His hand. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm sorry for the sins of my life. I'm turning from them; I'm not running things anymore - You are. Your death for my sins...your resurrection from the dead is my only hope. Thank you for coming to me one more time, because from this day on, Jesus, I'm Yours."
If that's where your heart is right now, that's what our website was set up for. A person like you at a time like this. The website is ANewStory.com. Please, as soon as you can today, would you find that and there find, I believe, the information that will help you know that you belong to Jesus once and for all.
The gate is open today, and there is no other way to heaven. The gate won't stay open forever, though. But today it's open. Go in while you can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)